Battle Royale 2013
by seedofbilly
Summary: An reworking of the book, film and manga Battle Royale. The same situation, re-imagined closer to the present day with all new characters, although a few minor players take credence from those who appear in the novel.
1. Chapter 1

The year was 2013. Japan was no longer existent as one nation, rather a coalition of nations comprising of China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Mongolia and Vietnam. This was the Asian Commonwealth. This was essentially a dictatorship, although the death toll was not a drastic one. Healthcare was good, crime rates were better and free opinion was condoned, there was no death penalty and a very effective prison system. The one hiccup in this supposedly perfect nation was that there were laws protecting youths, yet these laws created loopholes that any delinquent teenager could exploit to the level where they could almost get away with murder, the authorities would just blame the parents or guardians. This was becoming an ever-larger problem, and then someone came up with an idea. Something that would teach teens to stay in line. The Experimental Youth Combatant Program, better known as Battle Royale.

The idea was that 50 sets of 9th grade classes, the ones with the worst behavioural records; were hand picked, one class would eventually be chosen from these by vote. This class would be forcefully taken to a remote island in the south of Japan. Each person would be supplied with one ration pack and a randomly selected weapon; this could be anything from a flamethrower to a carving knife. The combatants would be fitted with electronic collars that would show their vital signs at all times, they would stay on the island as long as required, any attempt to escape would cause the collars to detonate. These events would be aired on television across the nation. The time limit was 1 week. Of all the teenagers placed on the island, only one would be able to leave, and that one could only leave; when all the others were dead.

**Battle Royale**

**An Adaptation by Callum Davies**

Chapter 1: The Cell

**Kazuo**

He woke up exactly 12 hours after first falling under. He was about 250 miles from where it happened now. The first thing he saw was a brown duffle bag, then he looked up and saw light shining through metal bars in the roof, it was the only source of light in this square box of a room. He was 17, skinny, 6 feet tall and could feel a haze hovering over him which told him that he'd been unconscious for quite some time. Running a hand through his short, dark hair he took one last look around, the room was featureless, nothing to see.

He picked himself up, nausea welling at the pit of his stomach, and walked a few paces forward, eyes adjusting to the low light. There was a ladder on the left hand side wall, the brown bag sat next to it but something else was on the ground next to that. A green three foot long case, like a guitar case, but thinner and the wrong shape, curious, Kazuo walked over to examine it, however before he could the sound of a loud speaker began to squawk from outside.

'Ahem. May I have your attention please, congratulations, your class has been hand picked to participate in 2013's annual Experimental Youth Combatant Program.'

Kazou's heart sank, he was on the program? This couldn't be real, no way, his class wasn't that bad was it? What about his parents? Did they know? He watched last year's program, he even picked a favourite, it just seemed like it would never happen to him. Before he could even take all this in the squawk box continued.

'Anyhoo, you will find yourself in a 4 metre by 5 metre cell, this cell is below ground and there are 50 of them on the island, your class is occupying 40 of them, this is Urashima island, I'm not going to divulge exactly where it is, but it has been uninhabited since it became the new battle arena 6 years ago. You will find that you have a metal collar around your neck.'

Kazuo hadn't noticed it up to now but sure as sure can be there it was, just a metal circle with a red LED light in the middle, it felt cold on his skin.

'By now I'm sure you've noticed it, this collar will keep track of your current location so we can keep an eye on you, it will also monitor your vital signs so we know when to cross you off so to speak. This collar also serves another purpose, it contains a very powerful wired explosive, if 24 hours pass with no casualties, or if the 1 week limited is exceeded, we will provide 1 extra's hour's notice and then detonate all remaining collars.'

Kazuo felt a shudder creep up his spine; it was a choice between murder and execution, perhaps even both.

'In your respective cells you will find your randomly assigned weapon, all of which are stored in green boxes, you can carry them around if you like but I'd advise against it, they're impractical. One quick note about that, due to a mix up with the security cafeteria and the hand-to-hand weapon supplies, one of the bags contains a ladle. I apologize for this mix up but there's nothing that can be done, we have no way of tracing who got it. Due to the fact that there are 40 of you and 50 weapons, the remaining 10 have been scattered in various locations on the island: a rapier, a bõ staff, a machete, a boomerang, a rather nice scythe, a bayonet, a long bow, a belt of 10 kunai knives, a silenced Wolfram PPK pistol, a Glock pistol and a large mallet are all still out there, mostly in the abandoned buildings that dot the island, happy hunting. The second bag contains the following: 7 days worth of food and sanitary rations, a jacket, a sleeping bag, ammunition for anyone with a gun, a med kit, binoculars and a special surprise that's new this year.'

Kazuo had already opened both bags by this point, the weapon was in fact a double barrel shotgun, brand new and already loaded, not the most practical of weapons but that wasn't what was on his mind. The brown bag was exactly as the intercom said, the surprise, the only thing left, was a PDA with a virtual map on it.

'I just paused there so you could find it for yourselves, ah the wave of technology, it's a special palmtop device that'll make the remainder of your lives that little bit easier. Whether as last year we made you draw out the markers on a map, this year we have this, every morning at 7 we'll announce the danger zones, these squares are marked red on the map, should you enter one of these zones your collar will start screeching at you, this means you've got 5 minutes to get the hell outta dodge before you go KABLAMO! He he he, sorry, ad libbing a bit there, anyway, some areas are always like this, such as our headquarters, the others change every day, making sure people don't stay put you see. This palmtop indicates those spots, shows you where you are, bleeps when someone's within about 5 metres of you and indicates where they are when they get this close. You can also access the national news, watch the previous day's episode as soon as it's available and if you're too lazy for that you can check who's dead and have a look at their final moments, oh and we've put Tetris on there. Finally, the ocean perimeter is guarded so don't get ideas about swimming away, if the guns don't get you the collars will. I'm also required to tell you that you're next of kin have been informed of your participation and that the only other way you can be let off the island is if the diagnostic we ran on you while you were under reveals any serious disease, should that occur you'll be declared unfit to compete, your collar deactivated and you'll immediately airlifted out, if anyone interferes with this process the helicopters have mounted turrets. You're cell will open in T-minus 10 minutes; good luck to you all and enjoy the game. Oh one final point, if you're going to do something drastic, and lets face it you will, try and do it in an area with lots of cameras, those multi-angled shots are pure gold, until tomorrow little soldiers, sayonara.'

Kazuo sat there, motionless, at first he became angry, and then he came close to tears. He knew there would be other people who didn't want to play into this, on one hand he didn't want the last time he saw his family to be when he walked out the door before they were even awake, on the other he could never watch his friends die just for an exit ticket. It was overwhelming, he could almost see the walls closing in around him and he could feel the burning in his chest, like cold fire, paralysing him, then a noise startled him to the point where he almost cried out. The bars above him had opened. He didn't leave for at least another half hour, contemplating what to do, he heard almost no noise from outside, and this intimidated him further. Eventually he summoned up the courage to leave, he considered leaving the gun behind but he decided that even if he didn't play, nothing would stop some people from going after him, he needed to defend himself. Even such passing thoughts made him feel guilty, but it was something he'd have to adjust to. He picked up the silver gun, it was heavier than he thought, slinging it over his shoulder, he climbed the metal ladder, letting one hand back to hold his ration bag. The island overwhelmed him, the harsh sunlight, the trees all around, he was at the edge of a large area of forest with a hill behind him, it had a small gazebo like structure on the top, as soon as he got all the way out of the cell the bars shut, he guessed they were wired to do so after detecting that you'd left, no sense in hanging around in one, eventually you'd be flushed out.

Kazuo remained where he was for quite some time, he closely examined the PDA map, the main complex was in the middle and all of the danger zones were located around the island perimeter, for the day at any rate. He checked the class roster many times, every time he checked there were no casualties, not one, this felt somewhat gratifying. Eventually Kazuo plucked up the courage to head up to the gazebo, it looked like a good strategic point, for the moment. He was more tired than he expected an the hill proved a hard thing to climb, he felt the cold of the 4 beers in his bag, he'd been smuggling them in, not quite the school trip he'd originally envisioned. To pass the time Kazuo tried to imagine how they'd be handling this, for Kyo, it almost seemed an ironic predicament, getting handed a weapon is exactly the kind of thing he got off on. Kazuo would often make joking death threats, mainly when he was around Mitsuru and Yoshinori, he honestly had no idea how either of them would be feeling right now, not to mention the girls, he could never even picture Atsuko or Hanako holding a gun, neither of them ever would, Miho with a weapon would be a force to be reckoned with no doubts there, but in truth it'd probably never happen. Why was he thinking these thoughts? He didn't know what to think anymore, everything just felt fucked up, he hated this place, he hated himself, all he could think of was seeing his friends again, but at the same time he wanted to stay away from them, the concept of seeing them die was too much to stomach.

Eventually he came within sight of the gazebo, then there was a beeping noise in his bag. He fumbled to reach into it, it was the PDA of course, it was loudly declaring that someone was close, indicated by a flashing red dot on his map, not moving, in the gazebo. Kazuo felt his heart throbbing, he was terrified, but of what, his friends? Why? He knew, but he didn't want to even think it. He slowly moved toward the white domed structure, he crouched, the beeping got ever louder, he felt fear choking him, someone was waiting over the other side, and that someone could be the last person he'd ever see. Slowly, he placed one hand on the rail, and peered over.

**Satoshi**

The north face of Urashima Island overlooked an offshore oil rig and a group of boats about 50 metres out, all with mounted gun turrets. Satoshi sat, feet dangling over the edge, examining the weapon he'd been given. He knew enough about weaponry to be aware that he was holding nunchuks, something he'd only ever seen on television. Satoshi was a well-rounded kind of guy, he had always had decent leadership skills and seemed to have a good handle on his life, but this was too much. Part of him was aware that something like this would overwhelm anyone, but still. He remembered watching last year's program, he remembered who he rooted for. This made him wonder if people were going to root for him, if his parents or even grandparents were watching this. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and stood up straight, no point in sitting around doing nothing he thought. He stumbled over the rocky face, examining the grid map on his PDA to be absolutely sure he didn't stray into the danger zone a few feet away. He walked out into a clear open area with forest on either side, he decided that letting his anger well up wasn't healthy, so he begin practising with his nunchuks. He swung left, right, not with precision but with pure anger. Why him? He was a good kid. He always did his work. Hell he was one of the best in his class, maybe the best, he didn't deserve this. He turned to face left and swung in a massive arc but nearly went off balance. With a roar of fury he ran and hacked at a nearby tree repeatedly. Again and again he struck at it, he could feel his muscles getting strained, then he felt that painful tug, he'd pulled his right bicep.

Satoshi slumped down on the ground, glasses falling to the floor as his head bowed, he wasn't the type to sit around and do nothing, but he didn't want to get up until the pain in his arm went away. He futilely searched his bag for some treatment for pulled muscles, but eventually just grabbed one of the 'Battle Bar' brand energy bars in his ration kit. It was disgusting; it tasted like weak old fruit paste mixed with grit salt, which is probably not a long way from what it really was. He checked what else was in there, a thermos full of what smelled like coffee, another one full of soup, a few bottles of water, 12 ready meals, another 11 of those hideous bars, 12 wrapped sandwiches, different stuff inside each one and 12 packs of freeze dried ice cream, all different flavours. He had always liked freeze dried ice cream, at this point he decided he should look at the positives, no matter how few and far between they were. He decided that, in terms of self-defence and even if he had no intention of killing anybody, he needed a better weapon, the Glock or the Wolfram seemed to be the best option, but he would make do with whatever he found. After examining the PDA more closely Satoshi found the notepad function and wrote himself a list of objectives:

Find someone (Atsuko preferably)

Look for a replacement weapon

Find a good vantage point/secure building for temporary accommodation

Establish a system of communication

He began to move north, the map marked a house and the relief setting indicated that it was on top of a hill. Satoshi was so busy examining his PDA he didn't realise that were he to look up he'd be able to see the house as clear as ever. He decided to listen to his Mp3 player, he'd brought it for the coach journey and plane trip but now he decided classic rock would be a good medium to help him calm himself. The act of moving up the hillside seemed more tiring than normal, he guessed he was still groggy from when they put him under. He remembered everything, sitting on the bus, laughing, trying to work Tetsuya's last nerve, his reactions were priceless. Tetsuya could've been dying, he thought. He knew it hadn't really sunk in yet, that was what he was dreading, not the combat, not the sight of his friends, just when it would finally get him, he was supposed to be the down to earth one, the leader, but what if this was too much? No, he told himself, he wasn't going down that easy, he had to focus on the positives, always the positives, otherwise he could loose it, he wasn't gonna let that happen.

He pushed the last bush aside, saw the house. It was a nice house too. Oak door, two stories, rather inviting. He grasped the brass handle and turned. Inside it was dark as a crypt, but fully furnished. This was odd; it looked like it was ready to receive visitors. How disgusting he thought, these people going to all this effort to make him and his classmates feel welcome even though they were going to die, it was like putting a death row inmate up in the Hilton, pointless. Then Satoshi heard something above him, footsteps. They sounded panicked, he rushed up the stairs. The stairs led to a long corridor. The interior was all Japanese style so the doors were wood and paper, he could see a silhouette behind the furthest one, just standing there. Then suddenly there was a loud noise, first a loud clank, then a crash as dust exploded out in front of him. Satoshi felt something on his face, he put his hand up and wiped it off, it was blood.

The dust cleared and the door was still closed, the silhouette was still there, if a little closer, blood was seeping through the bottom and was splattered over every wall. Then Satoshi saw it, there, in the middle of the door, poking through, a harpoon. It had gone right through the centre of the silhouette. The paper and wood of the door creaked and buckled then shattered. Satoshi saw who it was, it was a boy he recognized as Kenji, one of that poser tough guy crowd, he had never liked him. But now he was staring at Satoshi with empty dead eyes, steeped in his own blood, switch blade in his right hand. Satoshi felt his chest heave, he could feel the vomit welling up inside him, he could see everything, Kenji's chest was being pushed up by the barbed spike, yellow liquid was dripping from his belly and leaking out of his wide mouth, it stank. Satoshi looked up, he saw something even more horrible. There, with a massive scratch across his chest, harpoon gun in his shaky hand, eyes wide with fear, was Yoshinori, his friend.

'Yoshi? What the fucking hell have you done!'

Yoshinori stared back at him, a tear rolled down his cheek, chin quivering, Satoshi had never seen him like this, Yoshinori slowly opened his mouth to reply.

'My….my finger slipped'

**Masako**

In the almost dead centre of the island there was a tall hill, almost a mountain. On the east ridge of this hill there was a cave, this is where Masako and Hanako decided to stay, not long after they found each other. Masako was a short girl with straight hair that didn't reach far past where her head met her neck; she had glasses that she wore more or less all the time. To anyone who had just met her she would seem very quiet and somewhat shy, to her friends she was neither of these things. She sat there, weighing her weapon in her hands, it was a musket, which anyone can tell you is a very old conventional weapon, Masako wasn't sure what to make of it, it looked brand new, some kind of restoration on an old theme. Hanako grabbed her shoulder.

'You don't plan on using that…thing, do you?'

She asked

'Not if I can help it, what did you end up with?'

Hanako, a slightly taller girl with longer, curly hair, produced a formidable looking ice pick from her bag

'I'm not entirely sure what this thing is.'

'It's an ice pick I think, it doesn't look it'd be much use in a fight.'

'I'm not going to fight anybo_'

'I know, I know.'

'Besides even if I could I_'

'Let's maybe talk about something else'

Hanako turned back around in thought. Masako had just said this to dodge any morbidity, she didn't want to think about any of the grim principles of this game, she'd never liked it, it always struck her as more of a guy thing, getting off on gore and things of that nature. She fumbled with the metal collar around her neck, she'd already tried to yank it off but it was futile, it was sealed tight. Strangely, she'd been able to handle the situation quite well, she hadn't cried, screamed or anything like that, Hanako on the other hand was midway through washing off the black lines of mascara when they bumped into each other.

Hanako at this point was checking the PDA, suddenly a look of shock crept over her face.

'Oh…oh no'

'What? What happened'

'Someone's gone.'

'Who? Who?'

'Kenji'

'Kenji? That kid who used to cut school every Thursday? Fuck, FUCK! I used to sit next to him in English, he…sometimes we talked about music and stuff.'

'I suppose we're going to have to get used to this.'

Right then there was a noise outside, footsteps began to emanate through the cave, Masako froze.

'Shit, who the hell is that?'

Before Hanako could answer a thankfully familiar voice sounded

'Hello?'

It was Kyo's, seconds later he emerged round the corner, Kyo was very tall, not quite the tallest, that honour belonged to Mitsuru, but he wasn't far off. He had long wild hair and often dressed in an abstract manner, now he was standing there, panting, with two Kama in one hand. Kama were one-handed weapons that resembled scythes, they were a traditional weapon in Japanese history. He also had a long bow slung over his shoulder, Masako remembered that horrible announcer mentioning a long bow. She was somewhat relieved to see Kyo, but it had been Yoshinori she'd wanted to emerge, she wasn't so much concerned for him, he could handle himself, but she worried how she'd get through this without him around.

Hanako by this point had already ran up to greet Kyo, who barely reacted to this, he was trying to catch his breath so he could speak.

'I…I…I…. you have to come with me'

He panted

'We….Why? Where?'

Questioned Masako

'I…I was scouting, I'm using one of the houses, I'm with Atsuko and Miho'

**Mitsuru**

It had been 12 hours, he may never see his family again, he'd been pitted against his best friends, his chances of survival were one in forty, and Mitsuru Oshii couldn't help but laugh. This may sound insensitive, but Mitsuru was the one who'd ended up with a ladle as a weapon. Fate as it seemed, was not without a sense of irony. Mitsuru was now travelling north east from the bottom corner of the island, he was with a boy named Yuji, Mitsuru didn't know him very well but they'd ran into each other early on and decided to stick together, considering this stunted baseball prodigy had ended up with a Katana as a weapon, it seemed like a wise move to stay with him. Mitsuru's defining attribute was his height, he was very, very tall with short cut hair, he was an advocate of bizarre comedy shows and Hayou Miyazaki movies, he had an absurdly childish sense of humour shared by some of his friends, his other friends either didn't understand his constant application of innuendo or were merely irritated by it. For all his messing around he retained some level of maturity, especially in a situation like this, he knew as well as anyone else how severe a predicament he was in, he knew about Kenji, it was shocking even if he hadn't liked him, but he was trying not to let panic consume him.

'Hey Mitsuru, you alright?'

'What? Yeah, fine, lets keep going.'

'Going where, specifically? We've been walking for quite a while now.'

'Urm, my palmtop says there's a cave through that section of forest, looks like a good place to hold up for a while.'

Yuji nodded silently. The two of them hadn't been conversing much, it'd been somewhat awkward, neither one really knew what to say to the other. Mitsuru's mind was warped with doubt, he was convinced he should have been able to apply himself in this situation; his father was in the military, he knew about situations like this. Or so he thought. No military figure in history had experienced a challenge of this magnitude. They moved into a section of trees, Mitsuru delved into his bag and fished out an energy bar, he figured food would help settle his uneasy mind. It did. The bar, as far as Mitsuru was concerned, was delicious, it had just the right texture, not too gritty and not too gooey, it seemed to be something positive to pull out of this situation. The only other pacification was thinking about home. Just like that Mitsuru had devised a way to pass the time.

'Hey, Yuji'

'Yeah?'

'Where would you rather be, right now?'

'Damn, that's a good question, I'm tired, but I don't want to be in bed for some reason, so… Hey I know, in my leather recliner, watching the game.'

'You have a leather recliner? That's ace'

Yuji chuckled; Mitsuru felt as if he was finally breaking the ice with this guy, hopefully he'd be able to keep it that way.

'Hey I tell you what else, I'd kill for an ice cold beer right about now, where the hell is Kaz when you need him?'

'Yeah, so you persuaded him to sneak them in?'

'He didn't take much persuading, yeah that's what I'd want, an afternoon game in the setting sun with a nice ice cold_'

It all happened so fast, the sound of the gunshot cut through the air like a razor sharp knife. The echo bounced off the trees and into the air; and time itself stood still. Yuji stood there, static, face paralysed in a final stare of fear incarnate. The image told the story, where the bullet had hit, what angle it hit at and where it came out; it burned into Mitsuru's memory and he could feel Yuji's blood on his face. Yuji crumpled to the floor, Mitsuru didn't have time to react before another shot sliced through the air. He felt it, burning, across his arm, Mitsuru fell to the ground. It hurt so much, this was all real, he was hiding in cover, a bullet had narrowly missed him and his classmate was lying face to face with him, stone dead.

**Tetsuya**

Welcome to hell. That's all that ran through Tetsuya's mind when he woke up in that metal case, welcome to hell. The chamber was where he still sat, he'd been checking the PDA on a regular basis and knew full well that Kenji and Yuji where dead. He wasn't particularly bothered about Kenji, but he'd known Yuji, he'd liked him, everyone liked Yuji, but few people actually knew him, Tetsuya considered himself to be one of the few. The weapon he'd been issued was a standard revolver, he wasn't even going to take it with him; to him it was a symbol of everything this wretched fucking game stood for. Tetsuya was a likeable guy; he had imagination and creativity to a degree not shared by many others. He valued his friends far more than most; no one could say a word against him. He was mid height with hair that was short at the back with a long slick over his eye. He was a renowned acrobat and dancer. He did have a habit of complaining in the same way Kazuo did, if a little more loudly than him.

He left the metal box and began to move in the direction of the main town, if there was anywhere to find refuge, he thought, it would be there. All that went through his mind was his friends, where they were, if they were dying, he just didn't know, he didn't want his last memory of Satoshi to be being flicked in the nose by him for the 8 millionth fucking time. At first he sang to himself to calm his nerves, but self-consciousness got the better of him, so he decided to run. The trees flew by him like the world was changing as fast as he was running; again and again he felt them brush against him. Eventually the inevitable burning heave in his chest subdued him, he had a stitch. He clutched one hand to his shirt, and then he tripped over something.

He hit the ground hard, his head knocked against the root of a tree, he immediately reached up to be sure he wasn't bleeding, luckily he wasn't. He turned to see what he'd tripped over. Suddenly his breath started to heave, he tried as best he could to hold back the vomit, for Temari, the girl who sat near him in maths and twirled her hair, was lying at his feet. She'd always got on his nerves, why twiddle her hair like that, and why all the goddamn time? But now, lying at his feet, pool of blood moving out like the tide, he felt something else. Not only was she dead, but she had an enormous gash clear through her left shoulder, Tetsuya could see her ribcage. Lying next to her, steeped in blood, was a chainsaw. What was worse, it had been blocked up, by Temari's flesh. Tetsuya couldn't hold it any longer; he vomited, and then lay, sprawled on the ground.

'Why? Why? FUCKING WHY?'

He squealed through his burnt throat.

After a very long time, he picked himself up, pulled his shirt collar up over his mouth, and looked through her pack. He took a second thermos, and then he saw something, her ammunition, it was gas canisters, for a flamethrower. He was aghast. Best-case scenario: she never took it with her, worst case: her killer had taken it. He tried to push such thoughts out of his head, and began to move on. He walked onward through often thick sections of forest, it had started getting dark and his movements were aimless, he often veered in random directions, having given up looking at his PDA and would stop to rest constantly for often long stretches of time.

It wasn't until about 3am that he finally pulled in at the town, from what he could tell it wasn't the dried out husk of a place he'd imagined, it looked like a traditional town, for all intents and purposes it was. There were several houses lined up around the area, along with a large barn and a tall bell tower with an adjacent living area. Before Tetsuya could take all of this in, a hand grabbed him from behind, dragging him back. In shock Tetsuya turned, facing him was a panicked looking Shinji, framed by a slick of moonlight. Shinji was on the baseball team, in the past year Tetsuya had come to realise he wasn't so much the tough guy anymore; he'd seemingly come to terms with his own intelligence so to speak. Here he was with a very formidable looking 12-gauge shotgun in hand. Before Tetsuya could speak let alone react, the sound of a gunshot flickered past them.

'What the hell?'

Tetsuya wheezed

'Suzuki, he has some kind of powerful pistol, he's had me pinned down for a while now, stick with me if you want to live, for now.'

Tetsuya silently obeyed, here he was in the middle of a gunfight between a right handed screwball pitcher and the only guy who got an A+ grade in Music theory, these were people he knew, liked, and related to. And all of them, all of them were going to die. Welcome to hell.

**Atsuko**

No one can tell you how you'll react when you're faced in a situation like Battle Royale, people can assume that you'd react in a certain way, but they can never be 100% sure. A lot of people would have said that Atsuko would have cried. She didn't. She sat, alone in her cell, curled up, and fell asleep, for 3 hours. There was no particular reason for this, but the shock had caused a system malfunction to some degree. She just didn't know how to feel, the only sure thing was that she would, come hell or high water, find her boyfriend, Satoshi. Atsuko was a medium height girl with not quite straight, not quite curly hair that she'd endlessly tinkered with the colour of in earlier years, of late she'd reached a satisfactory balance but the original pigment was lost to the ages. Her and Satoshi had been dating on and off for a number of years, their most recent relationship, a few blips aside, seemed to be the most serious and long-term commitment thus far, it was clear that she was very much in love with him and him with her. Her only goal at this point was to find him, but what then? That was the question she was blocking out, almost like covering her ears and yelling 'la la la' in a mental context. Denial wasn't advisable but it seemed to have been working, it wasn't going to work for ever, but that was the point, as soon as she found Satoshi, she could talk through it with him, all the more reason to find him, fast.

She hadn't been checking her PDA nor did she want to, knowing how her former classmates met their end would have been the final factor in her completely losing it. When she finally crawled out of the cell she found that the highest point on the island over looked her, she was in a wide expanse of grassland with few trees. It was here that she heard the crying. She walked towards the sound and began to hear her PDA beep in her bag, however no one was there. She decided to press on, yet she still heard it, the sobbing, echoing all around her. She moved back, her PDA was beeping again, she took it out to examine it, however when she did the beeping was not showing up on the radar, she could hear it, but it wasn't there. She looked up.

'Help me.'

A ghostly figure, a girl, had appeared right before her, the apparition whispered these words in her ear. Atsuko screamed and reared back. It was gone. She sat there, panting heavily, what had that thing been? What did it want? She only got a glimpse of the pale, tearful face, enough to see the empty, milky white eyes, but not enough to identify it. Slowly, quivering, she turned back. The crying returned, it haunted her every step, gradually, the tone changed and the crying morphed, into laughter. Atsuko turned and screeched

'Leave me alone!'

Why was it there, why was she there? Why had she been chosen for this? She felt the tears, but as she had been doing, held them back. A voice sounded from afar.

'Atsuko?'

It was Kyo's; he walked up the path with his bag hanging out of one hand, two scythe like weapons in the other. She ran up and embraced him, happy to see anyone.

'I heard you yelling, who were you talking to?'

'I… No-one.'

Kyo shrugged. They walked across a forest covered section of the island, Atsuko always kept Kyo talking, she didn't want to risk hearing the crying girl again. The forest was vast, angled light shone through the green leaves and bathed the entire area in fractured beams, the trees were beautiful, ironic that in an island that had seen so much death, there could still be beauty. The two of them reached a house, forgetting Kyo and overwhelmed by curiosity, Atsuko ventured inside. It was clean, too clean, fully furnished and immaculate, it even smelled nice. The thought of labouring cleaners replacing shot up tables and wiping blood from the walls was another that Atsuko tried to repress. The crying started again. It drifted down the hallways and surrounded her; only, it was a different tone this time. It sounded like someone else. Atsuko moved up the stairs, her PDA started beeping. The corridor seemed endless, the crying emanated from the last door on the left side. Slowly, she turned, and pushed the door open. There, slumped on the floor, was Miho, steeped in tears. Miho was a close friend of hers, shorter with dyed red hair, just as emotional, just as in love. Atsuko felt a sigh of relief. Then she turned; the ghost was standing behind her. It stood there, pure white skin, it was then Atsuko saw who it was, it was her. It stared, like a spectral mirror image, white eyes, wearing a tattered gold dress that flowed around its body and darkened away like silky liquid. It shivered, white hair blowing when there was no wind, its eyes returned, framed in glossy tears. It's white lips opened and uttered a single word.

'Cry'

The situation overwhelmed her. Atsuko let it all in, the fear, the doubt, the sorrow, tears began to roll down her cheeks. The ghost smiled, and faded away. Atsuko stumbled over to Miho; they sat together, and cried, and cried. It's never good to repress emotion, Atsuko learnt that fact the hard way, but on the first day of this horrible game, she learnt a valuable lesson, there would plenty more crying along the way.

**Yoshinori**

There was swearing. Had the cells not been sound proof, everyone around would have heard it, Yoshinori yelled every swear word under the sun when he was in that cell, he attacked the metal walls and screamed as anger overwhelmed him, there was no question that wrath was his sin. Yoshinori, Yoshi to his friends, was quite tall with long hair, he was very mathematically and scientifically intelligent, normally he had a good handle on his bad moods, but this had proved far too much for him. He eventually emerged from the cell, calmed, and with his own agenda, find his girlfriend Masako as quick as he could. Granted a lot of others had the exact same agenda, but he wasn't any less motivated. He found himself standing before a large mansion situated on the edge of a forest-covered hill. He'd given a lot of thought about how to apply himself. The first thing he did was to have breakfast. The energy bar was okay but the coffee was the crown jewel, he figured he must have been groggy from being knocked out, so it served as a wake up call. He also found needle marks on his skin. Knowing he'd been violated in this way infuriated him, but he kept it all in, he didn't want to lose his temper in the wrong situation.

After two cups of coffee, a battle bar and an egg mayonnaise sandwich, he headed into the house. As he walked in he instantly heard a loud beeping from his PDA, unzipping his bag he examined the map, it indicated that the person in question, was right above him. Suddenly he felt the onset of a new emotion, flooding all through his body, it was fear. The weapon he'd been given was a harpoon launcher; it was had a winch so the spear could be retrieved. He took it up in self-defence. He could barely move, the fear was petrifying, making him as to stone and he didn't know why. He took out his MP3, selected a particularly heavy album, put the volume up to full and listened. He used the music in his ears to drown out the fear, for the most part, it worked. He moved quickly up the stairs. The hallway was an L-shape with another flight of stairs at the other end, the traditional doors were paper thin, he'd easily be able to see the person, he thought. He moved around and towards the door and saw a glint of shadow. He calmed himself and slowly placed his hand on the door, then heard sliding, the one behind him had opened. He felt a tug on his earphones then felt them loosen, whoever it was had cut the wire. The next thing he felt was cold steel against his neck.

'Hey Yoshi, how's life?'

That voice, it was Kenji, that arrogant poser, Yoshinori had never liked him much before and he fucking hated him now, he tried to hold the anger in yet again. Kenji pulled him back into the next room and kicked the door shut.

'You're all mine, I'm going to slice your head off, it'll make a nice gift for Masako, maybe I'll kill her too, you know, after whatever else I feel like doing.'

Yoshinori felt something well up inside him, he drove his elbow into Kenji's chest, it knocked him back. Kenji yelled out and sliced blindly, Yoshinori felt the burning run across his chest, then the blood. He was not angry, he was calm, he knew what he had to do, he had to kill him, not for anger, not for retaliation, Kenji was a threat to his life. Kenji intended to kill him. Kenji had to die. Calmly, Yoshinori took up his harpoon gun, steadied his aim, and pulled the trigger. In a cloud of dust the spike blasted out of the gun with a metal clunk, he heard it impact, first against flesh, then bone. Suddenly a quiver ran over his body. The dust cleared. Blood flooded the floors. Kenji's frozen look of shock stared back at him. Kenji's insides were ripped apart. Kenji was dead. Yoshinori had murdered Kenji. Yoshinori was a murderer. And there, as Kenji's corpse crashed through the brittle paper of the doors, staring back at Yoshinori, was Satoshi.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: New Friends And Pyromaniacs

**Tetsuya**

"Fuck! I need to reload, move back! Quickly!"

Tetsuya had been mired on the losing side of a gunfight for some time now. He'd given up contemplating his situation; he just wanted to stay alive, if anything he was looking at his predicament from a more logical perspective all of a sudden. He knew why Shinji wasn't making any headway in this battle for a start, he was wielding a shotgun and Tetsuya had played enough video games to know that they were almost worthless at long range. One thing that hadn't changed was that Tetsuya hadn't breathed a word to him since they ran into each other. This wasn't based on fear or anything like that; it was just that he hadn't thought of anything to say. Until now.

"Move around the back."

"What was that?"

"He's using that barn house for cover because it has an outcropping, I'll stay here, he isn't aware of me so he'll think I'm you. It'll give you time enough to get close to him and finish him off."

"Jesus…. When did you go all military?"

"Around the time I saw what was left of Temari"

"I can understand that, alright, I'll try your little plan."

Shinji started to move around the side of the barn slowly. Meanwhile Tetsuya made odd obvious movements to give Suzuki the impression that he was still in a position of power, this was indicated by occasional testing gunshots in his direction. While this was a good plan, Tetsuya hadn't needed to concentrate too much to figure it out, him and Shinji had been there for a good 3 hours now, gunshots being fired was a very rare occurrence, this was, if anything a very boring gunfight.

It was early morning, around half past 6, the night had been long, other than the loud explosion that had sounded shortly after sundown, Tetsuya was pretty sure it had something to do with the gunshots he'd been hearing on his way up, but he didn't dare check his PDA to see who had been killed, it was too much, plus he was going to find out anyway. The fact of the matter was that, in spite of his overt reaction to seeing Temari's corpse, the situation hadn't sunk in yet. Besides, he had found himself in a positive situation, he was with Shinji, if anyone could protect him, it was Shinji. There was one thing true of that guy, he took no shit from anyone, even on such a cataclysmic level as this it would seem, plus he had a good weapon that he was far from afraid to use.

A loud shot sounded in the morning air. It was done; Tetsuya was suddenly racked with guilt. Suzuki was dead, he'd been kind of a dickhead at school, but Tetsuya had just played a part in his murder. He wished he could say this was the worst of it, but he had no idea how much harder it was going to get. Shinji walked out of the smoke, shotgun slung over his right shoulder, he waved to Tetsuya. Then something happened. A new sound, similar to the old gunshots, but more piercing, implying more speed, more power. Shinji slumped down onto the ground, blood leaking from his cracked skull. His mouth hung open, his eyes were wide. That was the moment it got real for Tetsuya, before he could even think another shot zoomed by his head. The gunner had seen him too. He couldn't run, then he heard something, metal creaking behind him, relief washed over him as he saw the open barn door. Then he heard a familiar voice.

"Hurry Tetsuya! Get inside!"

**Kazuo**

Shinji died at 06:31 on the second day, but for Kazuo's story, we have to go back to the first day, at 13:46, when he peered over that white wall.

He slowly moved toward the white domed structure, he crouched, the beeping got ever louder, he felt fear choking him, someone was waiting over the other side, and that someone could be the last person he'd ever see. Slowly, he placed one hand on the rail, and peered over. There, sat before him, bag cradled in her shivering hands, was Sakura. Sakura wasn't a friend of Kazuo's, he didn't know her very well, she was one of the more popular girls. Kazuo saw her at the odd basketball game, but she wasn't one of those stupid girls who stood at the sidelines yelling, her and her friends spent their time standing around reminding everyone how pretty and popular they were, a harsher person would refer to her as a 'plastic'. She looked very different now, there were tears streaming down her face, her slightly curled hair was messed and damp at the edges, she was rocking back and forth rhythmically. The simple fact of the matter was that she needed help.

"Sakura?"

"Ka-Kaz? What… What do you want?"

A half grimace, half smile ran across Kazuo's face. 'What do you want?' not the greeting he'd expected.

"What do I want? I was supposed to just walk past you?"

"That's not what I meant. So, you're not gonna kill me?"

"No! How could you say that?"

"Takahashi… he came by earlier, he threatened to kill me unless I… I… He was going to…. He saw someone else and ran off, otherwise…"

Kazuo didn't know quite how to react to this, of all the people in his class, Takahashi, Hiroshi, Ryu and Seta were the only ones who were really as despicable as that, but he never thought any of those perverted creeps would be capable of something so horrific. Any prejudices he had about Sakura in the past very quickly shrank away, he didn't know exactly why he did what he did next, but he got to his feet, sat beside her and went into his bag, he produced a blanket and draped it around her.

"Will you stay with me?"

Sobbed Sakura

"If you want, but we should get out of here, this place is too obvious."

"Yeah…you're right"

Sakura slowly got to her feet, though she nearly fell at first, Kazuo was patient, another boy had essentially tried to rape her, he couldn't just leave her there, let alone rush her. After a while she got her bearings again, though it was a long time before she spoke.

"So you're not going to play the game"

"Fuck no."

Sakura giggled, laughter, that was progress.

"Do you know what you're going to do?"

"No, not at this point, but I'll, I'll think of something."

"What happens if you get attacked?"

"I'll have to fight back, lucky for me I got handed a pretty good weapon"

"So you really think you'll need to use that thing?"

"I hope not, I really do, but at least I have it if the need arises you know"

"You're a lot different than I thought you were."

"Say what?"

"I figured in a situation like this you end up turning into some violence junkie, I thought that's what would happen to all you boyish types."

"Thanks for that"

"Sorry, but you know, you and your friends always make those stupid jokes, play video games, you even watch cartoons if I'm not wrong."

"You're not, but I know how to act maturely, I just think that at 17 I shouldn't have to act like an adult, I want to enjoy what little of my teens I have left you know. I still do all the fun stuff you guys do."

"Parties and stuff?"

"Yeah, my lot aren't exactly the overgrown children some people think we are."

"I'm starting to see that, for your part."

It seemed like things were moving the right direction, Kazuo was glad to have a travelling companion and one less person to try and kill him further down the line. There was something in the air that was still bothering him though, he couldn't quite put his finger on it yet. It was getting to sunset when they happened upon a small collection of houses, conversation was becoming less awkward, occurring in small bursts. A rustling from the far away bushes suddenly got Kazuo's attention.

"What?" Sakura questioned.

Before Kazuo could respond a gunshot sounded, Sakura screamed, the bullet had hit her in the side of her leg, blood was flowing down it. Kazuo's breath heaved, but he acted, he grabbed her and pulled her to the ground. Sakura continued to wail in pain until Kazuo clapped his hand over her mouth. He kept a watchful eye on the area it came from. He could see the leaves moving. Then there it was. A shape moving in the distance. Back and forth, bobbing. It was someone's head. The shooter was looking for them. Kazuo kept his head down with one eye looking up, if he couldn't see the shooter the shooter couldn't see him. This logic was very flawed, but he was too panicked to notice. The two of them lay motionless for almost half an hour. Kazuo looked to the side and something caught his eye, it was Sakura's PDA, poking out of her bag. Inch by inch Kazuo stretched his hand over. He could feel it straining, his index finer brushed against the cold edge, if he could just reach a little further, he'd be able to get it. Just a little further, he knew even the slightest sound would alert the sniper to what he was doing, His finger pushed against the corner, his muscles stretched, he knew he was going to pull one if he kept this up for much longer, he could feel the tension building like strings tightly pulled and ready to snap. With one last movement the PDA fell onto the ground, instantly Kazuo clamped his hand over it and dragged it back towards him. A shot was imbedded in the ground split seconds later where his hand had been, he felt his ears ring and Sakura buried her head in her arms.

Checking the PDA, Kazuo tried to determine where the shooter was, he had seen the shooter move from behind a large tree that was marked on the map, it was the only tree in this area, the rest of the hill was covered by bushes, Kazuo noticed something, this person was right next to a danger zone. He looked left and right, he saw a clear area, if he moved through it, the shooter might assume that he had to move further left in order to get a good shot at him, it was a gamble but if it worked, the relief lines indicated a massive ditch at the edge of the danger zone, hopefully with all the plant life, the shooter hadn't noticed. Step by step, Kazuo edged across, he motioned Sakura to stay where she was, he moved through the clear area quickly, not looking forward but to the side. He lay down flat once again, listening out for the sound of the shooter tumbling to their fate, but nothing. Then something. A gunshot pierced the ground mere inches from Kazuo's face. The sound ran through his entire body, Sakura screamed, Kazuo rolled over to the side onto his back, breath heaving in his chest. For a long time there was silence, Kazuo's plan had failed, then, he heard something faint in the distance, beeping. Before he could register the sound, he heard it. The explosion ran through the air; smoke billowed up from the bushes on the hill. It had worked. Kazuo cautiously rose to his feet. Then he sank right back onto his knees, his head hung, Sakura limped over and slumped down next to him, she put her hand on his shoulder and smiled comfortingly. Kazuo got up and helped her to do the same, they began moving towards one of the houses. He had no idea what was going to happen next, or how all this was going to end, but he, just like everyone else, had learnt the true nature of the game, what he didn't know, was that his pain was just beginning.

**Miho**

Everyone on the island realised the true nature of the game in a different way, Tetsuya saw Shinji get shot in the head, Mitsuru was forced to lie next to the corpse of a former friend for so long that he could smell him rotting and Yoshinori killed someone. Miho on the other hand faced a threat she was very familiar with, bullying.

The house that she had found was enormous, essentially a mansion, well furnished, there was even food in the fridge, were it not for the risk of it becoming a danger zone it would have been a great place to hold up. Miho had wanted to cry ever since she first emerged out of the metal box, she was a short girl with dyed red hair. Among her friends she was renowned for her wit and the fact that she took no shit from anybody, ever. This didn't mean that she wasn't an emotional person, she was good at talking people out of depressing phases that's for certain, but something like this would overwhelm anyone. She held the tears back up until she reached the house, she went to one of the bedrooms and collapsed, said everything that came into her head in a fit of tears. It was just trauma, it was release.

Moments later Atsuko arrived with Kyo. Kyo wasted no time in leaving to look for anyone else while Miho and Atsuko talked, therapeutically.

"Something to drink that isn't Battle Brand orange juice or water."

Sighed Atsuko

"Yeah, something with alcohol in it"

"That'd be good, you know what else?"

"Satoshi, I know, you've been saying that every other sentence for the past hour and a half Atsuko."

"Can you blame me?"

"No, I guess not, if Ichiro walked through this door right now I'd…. well I don't really need to say do I? I hope I find him, and the others."

"Imagine how Tetsuya must be"

"Don't, I don't want to think about it, the sooner I find Tetsuya the better, he won't last without me, and vice versa."

Atsuko giggled, humour in the face of adversity was something everyone was becoming used to. Kyo's voice emanated from outside.

"I'm back! I found Hanako and Masako!"

Moments later he walked in, with Hanako and Masako the main four girls of the group were together, this was a group of friends that consisted of Miho, Ichiro, Atsuko, Satoshi, Masako, Yoshinori, Mitsuru, Noboru, Kyo, Hanako, Kazuo and Tetsuya. Of course a reuniting as happy as this was never going to last very long.

9 o'clock in the evening, everyone was getting re-acquainted, save for Kyo who'd once again gone out searching for people. There was a loud knock on the door. All four girls ventured down to check, Atsuko first. They had become more relaxed gradually so the sense of danger was not present, it was this, ultimately, that lost them the house.

The moment Atsuko opened the door she was yanked through the frame in fits of screaming, seconds later she re-emerged with another girl behind her, holding a sword at her neck. This girl was Reika, one of the plastic types, behind her were the other three that fit that category, armed to the teeth. The tallest one, Midori, had a sub-machine gun tucked under her arm, while the shortest girl Kanae who'd clearly been pressured into this attack was holding two pronged knives. Mayu, the one with blonde dyed hair, held a string bag filled with 8 hand grenades. It was clear before anyone even said anything what was going to happen, they were going to take the house, or Atsuko would have her throat cut. No one needed to say this, it was obvious. Silently, the girls walked outside the door while all the time the other four remained facing them. Pushing Atsuko to the floor they dashed inside. Atsuko remained lying on the floor for a long time, eventually she sat up, cross legged and buried her face in her hands. Miho sat down next to her, the other two followed suit. They said nothing, this was a peculiar reaction, however it seemed appropriate.

It was about 20 minutes later that the playing field was levelled, Miho was looking through her bag, she had considered trying to take the house back, but it would have been futile, none of the girls had a predisposition towards violence or any experience in implementing it, Kyo did, he'd been in his share of fights but he wouldn't dare kill anyone, the 4 girls that took the house seemed more than willing to. Something suddenly caught Miho's eye, a lick of flame tore out of the high window of the house and it was closely followed by a series of screams. More fire erupted out of the top level of the house and gradually overwhelmed it. As it worked its way down suddenly an explosion blasted one of the walls off the house, it came crashing down in a clearing on the left side, Miho could only stand and watch as this happened, a hand met her shoulder, Atsuko turned her around and led her away from the flames. They walked silently for a very long time. Suddenly the bushes rustled, Kyo emerged, Mitsuru with him.

**Yoshinori**

"Hey! Listen to me!"

Yoshinori stumbled out into the hallway with Satoshi close in tow, calling after him.

"What the hell did you just do?"

"What I had to, either shut up about it or leave me the fuck alone Satoshi."

"Hey_Hey! Turn around and talk to me at least"

Yoshinori wheeled around with a look of utter distain across his blood-speckled face

"What is it?"

"I accept that you were defending yourself, but Jesus fucking Christ Yoshi! Don't you even regret what you just did?"

"No."

With that Yoshinori turned and walked away from him, he didn't have time to talk feelings with anyone after an ordeal like that, he needed to get moving, but that was the thing, he didn't know where. And to what cause? Find Masako? Sure, but what after that, try and squirm out of this stupid game? No way, it was airtight, the bastards up top had been running it for years, fool proof, the boats, the collars, it wasn't possible. Yoshinori kicked down the door of one of the rooms down the hallway. It was bathed in the light of the slowly setting sun; it played off the floorboards and dyed them yellow. It was almost beautiful, the light made the paper door of the wardrobe transparent to reveal that there was something inside. Yoshinori tore the door aside to reveal a long wooden staff.

"Awesome a Bo staff!"

Exclaimed Satoshi.

"Here."

Yoshinori tossed the stick to him gingerly.

"You sure?"

"Why not? It matches the nunchuks."

"Yoshi… I_"

"Save your breath Satoshi, I'm still your friend and I'm happy I found you don't get me wrong, but I had to kill Kenji or he would've killed me and he probably wouldn't have made it as quick as I did."

"I know that, it just bothers me that you're finding this so easy to come to terms with."

"I'm not, I'm just not talking about it, if it's all the same to you I'd like to keep it that way."

"But you_"

"_I'd like __to keep it that way_"

Satoshi kept his mouth shut for quite a while after that. Yoshinori was happy he wasn't confronting him about murdering Kenji, as if it wasn't difficult enough already. What bothered him was, even if it sounded arrogant, how good he'd been at it. In a moment of pressure he'd let go of any fear or doubt that had been bothering him and became a robot. He just did what was necessary, he didn't want to get into that mind set again. Ever.

They decided it would be best to spend the night in the house, but not long after they'd settled down to sleep something woke both of them up. There was fire erupting out from somewhere near the dead centre of the island, it was a dulled glow but it was painfully clear that it was some sort of building that had gone up in flames, the crackling sound was loud enough that they could hear it from where they were, then they heard a far more disturbing sound. A scream, a girl's scream. It was emanating from the exact same location. It was clear that in that house, someone was dying. What was worse was that it was guaranteed to be someone Yoshinori and Satoshi knew, what was unbearable was that there was nothing that they could do about it. Then the house exploded. It just happened. It felt as if the ground shook as flames reached out to the moon. Yoshinori buried his head in his hands, he already felt like killing himself and this was just day one. Satoshi placed a hand on his shoulder.

"There's nothing we can do, let's just try and get some sleep"

It was an exercise in futility; there was no sleeping after a day like that. The two of them set off at about 6AM on the second day, out into the forest, moving towards the main settlement, the area with lots of buildings, figured it was a good direction to head in. At about half past 6 another frightening sound erupted, two gunshots, within about 20 seconds of each other, distinctly different. One louder and quicker, more of a well distributed sound, the second, more lingering, sharper, more precise. If Yoshinori had to guess, he would say the first was a shotgun and the second was some form of rifle.

"That came from where we're headed"

Said Satoshi, the first sound he'd made since they left.

"I know, just try and ignore it"

"But what if_"

"We won't know until we get there"

Satoshi said nothing after that, but he started angrily dragging his feet, it was clear to Yoshinori that something was up, if he had to guess he would have said it was something to do with the lack of initiative Satoshi was exhibiting, it wasn't like him. But oh well, Yoshinori was in no mood to be distracted by his friend's bruised ego, they both had much bigger issues. More gunshots followed about ten minutes later, the loudest yet, they stopped and started a few times but the entire ordeal lasted about 5 minutes, clearly a rifle of some description, what was worrying was that it sounded close. Yoshi and Satoshi didn't bother to even discuss it, it was sink or swim, they just kept on walking.

Yoshi started looking through his bag, he then saw something poking out from under a sachet of tissues, a kind of green zipped bag, on the front it was totally unmarked, on the back it had instructions on how to administer a shot written on it. It warned not to use more than once in a space of ten hours, the shot was referred to as a sensory enhancer, which sounded to Yoshi like a drug. He opened it, sure enough there was a needle in there and five shots worth of whatever it was. He examined the little pharmacy standard box the shots came in, it said 'COMBAT ENHANCER' in bold, white lettering across the bottom. The box claimed that the serum would enhance your adrenaline levels and attune you to a state where killing became a natural instinct, it also said that it contained trace elements of steroids; the squawk box had failed to mention this. He quickly concealed the package in his bag before Satoshi noticed that he was looking at it, he didn't want him to get any ideas. He'd already killed one person on pure grit, what concerned Yoshi was that he was thinking he might need to use the drugs. Before the train of thought could wander any further both PDAs started screeching, Yoshi and Satoshi realised at the same time, it was 7 o' clock.

The PDA revealed that there were five new danger zones dotted around the island, none particularly near them thank God. There was also a loading bar for a download saying: Ep1 'The First Day'. Yoshi didn't dare think about watching it. Then the squawk box started talking.

"Good morning. Rise and shine little warriors! Today's a new day! My, my, my you've been busy little bees haven't you? Wow, this is quite a haul for the first catch, okay; lets get the obits over with so we can get on with our lives, however…abrupt some of them may be. It'll work like this, I will state who has died and by what cause, but I won't say who the killer was, we clear? Of course we are, let's do this. The first death was at 9:14 yesterday morning, one Kenji Shima, shot in the chest with a harpoon, very nicely executed on the part of his killer, you know who you are."

Yoshi's heart sank, first kill of the competition and it was by his hand.

"Moving on, Yuji Nanahara was killed at 25 past 9 on the same morning, shot in the head, his walking buddy managed to get away clean. 2 minutes later Temari Uzumaki met a rather grizzly fate at the blade of a chainsaw, so grizzly in fact that the chain got clogged up, but the killer took her weapon so the circle is complete. It wasn't until 8 in the evening that Gendo Niida was stupid enough to walk into a danger zone and get blown up, never have I seen someone in such and advantageous situation get so badly tricked, oh well, vengeance for Yuji I guess, I know I said I wouldn't mention killer's names, but the guy's dead I don't think he'll mind. Last kills of yesterday all happened at once, leaving last names out Reika, Midori, Mayu and Kanae all burned to death when someone who's fast becoming a star broke in their shiny new flamethrower, lovely. As far as today is concerned at half 6 this morning Shinji Kiryama put a shotgun to Suzuki Souma's head, 17 seconds later he was in turn shot in the head by a very well positioned sniper, given the evident relish he took in that kill I think we'll be seeing a lot more of that busy body. Finally, Hinata Mishima, Megumi Chitose, Noriko Takazaki, Kyoko Nagawa and Yuuske Mishima were all delightfully dispatched by way of a very special sort of gun fire 11 minutes ago, lord knows that'll get ratings shit me sideways. Anyway, hope that I've started you're day with a bang, smell you later my little freedomless fighters, God I amuse myself sometimes."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Deadpan Smiles: The Family Reunion

**Mitsuru**

"Anyway, hope that I've started you're day with a bang, smell you later my little freedomless fighters, God I amuse myself sometimes." Mitsuru sank to his knees. It had been less than 24 hours since they arrived and already 15 were dead, 15! That only left 25, within one day, granted the use of a heavy weapon of some kind and a flamethrower counted for two massacres occurring, but still.

"Mitsuru?"

Hanako's voice sounded from nearby

"Are you alright?"

Mitsuru rose to his feet, showing vulnerability was not something he wanted to do, ever.

"I'm fine, just, hearing that speech, winded me a bit you know?"

"Sorry, just I've never seen you like that."

"It won't happen again, we should keep moving."

Mitsuru strapped his katana to his back and walked on ahead. He didn't hear the footsteps catch up to him for a little while, he sensed some level of concern, but he didn't want to talk to them at this point, he'd already spoken to Kyo but it was evident that Kyo was himself in no mood for small talk, it amazed Mitsuru how well he'd taken all this in. Mitsuru had always exhibited a lot of strength within his psyche, any deep emotional outbursts well pretty damn well repressed; when he saw Yuji all he did was cough and splutter which for Mitsuru was in itself an emotional outburst. Even so, everyone had something to keep them moving, some had their other halves to locate, others wanted to locate a specific friend, for Mitsuru, it was three. Yoshi, Kazuo and Satoshi, he imagined that those three, left alone would come to terms with their situation as he had, but he felt that together their resolve would be a hell of a lot stronger.

They were a team; they shared many things, primarily interests and a sense of humour befitting 12 year olds or middle-aged men who engage in 3-day long pub-crawls. Sufficed to say they got along, it was a 'boys who never grow up' deal. They rarely exhibited maturity in any aspect of their pastimes when hanging out, which mainly entailed playing video games to an endless degree or exhibiting their uncanny ability to point out the innuendo in just about anything while heavily intoxicated (board games were a favourite). Social criticisms aside, Mitsuru figured they'd be able to properly address the situation when they were together, of course Mitsuru was blissfully unaware that Yoshi was now both a killer and a good one at that, he didn't know that Satoshi's nerves were strung up to breaking point and he had no idea that Kazuo had orchestrated a trick that ended with someone's head exploding. All of these issues were at odds with his own, seeing someone die isn't exactly a passing disturbance, but seeing someone get shot in the head and having to wash flecks of their skin off of your face could drive someone insane, luckily Mitsuru was dealing with it quite well, little did he know that around the corner was something a little harder to shake off.

The path down the forest broke off into 2 a few more yards down the line. The bell tower was on the left, Mitsuru turned left. Upon turning he realised two things, he realised that this path was a dead end, he also realised that the path on the right curved round it. These were the first two thoughts that registered in his brain before he looked down. He was standing in an ankle deep puddle of blood. All around him were bodies, unrecognisable, would have been nameless were it not for that maniac of an announcer. They were all of them reduced to piles of bone and red matter, broken apart, chunks of skin hung loose around their faces, Yuusuke's lower jaw and the rest of his skull lay several feet away from one another. They stank too, so much so that Mitsuru could feel his stomach heaving, but he held it in. He quickly turned around and dove into his bag for a handkerchief, he wrapped it around his mouth, it was then that yet another two things happened, the others arrived, but before they could even register the dumping ground of corpses laden before them, a familiar voice sounded from afar.

"Fucking yes! More bitches to the slaughter! You heard me you fucking cunts! Oh yes it be killing time! You think you're so big Mitsuru! Lets see how tall you are when I fucking blast you in half, hell yeah right through the dick you shit face!"

Shuuya. Shuuya Tokugawa. Intelligent. Insightful. Intimidating. But that voice, it wasn't the normal Shuuya, no this sound painted a different picture altogether. More along the lines of: maniac. Misogynist. Murderer. Mitsuru was quick to act, he launched himself at the rest of the group, bowling them over and knocking them into the bushes before the machine gun fire could reach them.

However Mitsuru had miscalculated something, he'd thrown them all into a thorn bush. Mitsuru felt them tugging at his clothes, along with the small scratches all over his arms and face, but neither he, nor any of the others reacted. Shuuya had Asperger's Syndrome, he was very intelligent but his social skills were hampered, you had to act a certain way around him, however this contest had thrown him for a loop clearly, Mitsuru assumed that anyone suffering from such a significant learning disability would not react well to such an overwhelming situation, however what Mitsuru didn't know was that Shuuya's violent and foul mouthed attitude had almost nothing to do with his AS, no, Shuuya had taken the combat drugs.

**Satoshi**

After recovering from that horrific speech Satoshi felt as if him and Yoshi were back on good terms, Satoshi was still concentrating on the positives, like the finding of a Bo staff, not only was it a just plain awesome weapon, he found himself to be pretty darn proficient with it, having studied using it in Tai Kwon Do. They had set off not long before 6 in the morning, it was now just past 7. Satoshi wanted to communicate the fact that he was taking a positive standpoint if anything; the odd empathetic smile worked a treat. But that's the thing. Satoshi wasn't taking a positive outlook, at all; in fact, he was teetering on the edge. The problem with this was that he thought he wasn't showing it, he was. He hadn't taken any real initiative in the situation, his normal leader like persona was not showing, Yoshi was well aware of this.

They heard Shuuya's yelling from relatively far off, recognizing his mention of Mitsuru they moved further up the ridge. They found Shuuya, he was totally unaware of them, he had his back to them, he was firing madly down the hill, Satoshi could only hope Mitsuru and whoever else was with him were still alive. He was wielding a rifle, every time he fired he was damn near thrown to the floor with the force of it, Satoshi recognized it to be an elephant gun. The weapon was abhorrent even in principle but putting it into this game was pure evil. A sneak attack from behind would allow Satoshi to render Shuuya unconscious and help Mitsuru and the others to get away safely. This would have worked excellently, were it just Satoshi who was thinking it, it wasn't. In his fragile state of mind Satoshi was taking a long time to transfer thought to action, everything in that plan had also ran into Yoshi's mind, albeit one of the parts was different. Yoshi had no intention of knocking Shuuya out. Yoshi's contact with Kenji had set him on edge; another side to him was boiling just under the surface, a cold, clinical, killer. It just needed a way to release itself. Yoshi, though he didn't know it, had already found a way. Satoshi could see this, at the back of his mind he knew it was going to happen, but as it did, he was powerless to stop Yoshi.

Shuuya sat totally unaware, screaming abuse at those facing the business end of his gun while Satoshi, though very much aware, was a passive observer. Yoshi unzipped his bag, took up the green case and slowly opened it. He gingerly opened the little box and took out the vile of serum; he poked the needle tip into the foil cover of the vile and extracted the serum as if he'd done it countless times before. Slowly, he pressed the metal tip through the skin and into the vein and pushed the plunger down. Satoshi's inner voice was screaming at him to stop, but he himself said nothing. Yoshi's pupils dilated, his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. Shuuya had gone berserk to this degree because where Yoshi had used one dose of the drug Shuuya had injected himself five times to maintain the effect. From the front his deranged state was a great deal more obvious. He was frothing at the mouth, his eyes were bloodshot and darted at speed, he was quivering all over and he was sweating profusely. Satoshi sat and watched it all unfold from a distance. Yoshi strategically darted from side to side with minimum noise. He reached Shuuya very quickly, but where he had been precise when approaching, the kill was nothing of the sort. He took up the harpoon's blade and buried it into Shuuya's right leg, Shuuya cried in agony and turned to face his attacker, Shuuya struck out but Yoshi dodged out of the way and drove the metal spike through his forearm, severing the artery and causing Shuuya to crumple. Blood spurted everywhere, covering the ground. Yoshi stood still and watched this for a while, taking relish in his victim's pain it would seem. He picked up the dropped elephant gun and held it mere inches from Shuuya's skull. The shot didn't just kill him, it obliterated him, his skull shattered as a plume of blood jetted into the undergrowth and the tip of his spine spasmed like an angry cobra. Granules of grey matter and chips of bone spilt in a wide circle around Shuuya's quivering body while Yoshi threw the gun down and outstretches his arms victoriously. It was then that Satoshi snapped.

**Kazuo**

The chaos going on elsewhere was something Kazuo and Sakura were more or less oblivious to. Since the events of last night they had moved into one of the smaller settlement areas where Kazuo took it upon himself to treat the bullet wound in Sakura's leg. Kazuo was by this point more than aware that Gendo was the one who'd tried to kill him, he felt no better about the result than he did when was unaware whom it was he'd managed to murder. He finished off the last bandage and draped around Sakura's leg, tying it off.

"There, as field dressings go, not too shabby."

"Humph"

"What? I'm not exactly an experienced medic or anything like that but I like to think_"

"No it's not you, it's just, I don't know, it doesn't feel right, this place, it's so clean, if you think that less than a year ago they must have been wiping blood off these walls."

"You can't be a hundred per cent sure of that, can you?"

"Actually I can, this is where the final three got cut down to the final two last year, I watched it"

"Oh yeah, I did too, Jesus. You're right, well, try not to dwell on stuff like that, all things considered, you and me are doing okay, don't you think?"

"Well when you put it that way, you're probably right."

"I'll let you get some rest."

"No."

Sakura pleaded, clutching his hand.

"Can you stay here?"

This felt a little awkward, for one of them at least. It made perfect sense that Sakura wouldn't want to be alone but she was in the company of a boy who had a bad habit of overanalysing things. Kazuo couldn't leave, but he didn't know what to say. Then he remembered his bag.

"Hey, you know what'd hit the spot?"

"No, what?"

"A nice cold beer!"

"Don't joke like that, I mean I wouldn't mind_ Holy shit Kaz!"

Exclaimed Sakura as Kazuo produced two bottles of beer from his bag.

"I was smuggling them in for Yuji and me, didn't figure I'd need them here, but I suppose it's something to pull out of this right?"

"Yeah, wow, okay quit stalling and pass it over then."

Sakura broke the top off on a table edge and drank half the bottle in one chug, letting out a loud belch, to which she quickly clapped her hand over her mouth, blushing. After a pause they began to laugh. Between them Sakura and Kazuo drank all of the six he'd brought with him, though evidently in the aftermath of such anxiety drunkenness was a virtually impossible feat to achieve. That said, it took the edge off, for a while. They talked about films, TV, music, the basics mainly, anything to distract them from their current circumstance, Kazuo found himself warming to Sakura, though he still made certain to keep his distance, Sakura wasn't as careful, she leant on him, touched him, clung to him, she generally behaved affectionately, Kazuo didn't like it but he didn't try to stop her. He felt guilty every time he felt happy, sat there in the noon light talking with a pretty girl about whether or not Sum 41 would ever top their debut album, it just didn't feel like it was justified. Kazuo was almost certain that his friends were mired in a situation of turmoil as he sat there laughing, moreover, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Kazuo tossed the empty bottles to one side and sank into the sofa in the living room of the house they'd moved into.

"Hey, Kaz, you think we'll make it out of this?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Seriously?"

"I'd be lying if I said I was certain, but something inside tells me that I can find a way out this, did that sound clichéd?"

"A little, you'll stay with me? As long as we're here?"

"Yup, as long as we're here."

"What about afterwards. I mean suppose we get out safely, what's it going to be like then?"

"You're guess is as good as mine, what do you think?"

"I think it'll be different, I mean, if we escape then we'll be fugitives, no one is supposed to get away from the program right? If both of us get out we'll have to stick together, so if you really think that'll happen, you'd better get used to having me around Kaz."

"What about your other friends?"

"Didn't you hear that this morning? They're dead, well actually, they weren't my friends"

"What Kanae and_"

"Yeah, I hung around with them, but I didn't like them, don't misunderstand it bothers me that they're dead, but; our friendship was kind of fake. You know?"

Sakura sighed and rested her head on Kazuo's shoulder, that was it, he needed to get some time to himself before he got too tempted to bolt, so he sprung up out of the chair.

"Uh, did you use the tap at all?"

He said while meaninglessly scratching the back of his head

"Yeah, why?"

"Well uh, that means there's hot water, gonna take a shower."

"O…K then, actually that's not a bad idea. Call me when you're finished."

Kazuo rushed into the shower and ran it ice cold. This was an issue, on the one hand he was starting to like Sakura, on the other they were on an island hunting each other to entertain the nation, definitely not a time for that kind of behaviour. She seemed to be something of an emotional mess, who wouldn't be after an incident like that one with Takahashi. He had to stay with her, but was he already in too deep, he decided not to think about it, rather he just thanked his lucky stars that the only issues he was having were girl issues. Something inside was also telling him that the worst was yet to come, in truth he could have had no idea what was in store for him, but in that respect, he was more than right.

**Kyo**

Kyo saw it all, he saw Yoshi dart out of the bushes, he saw him rip Shuuya's frail body apart, he even saw the word Shuuya mouthed just before he pulled the trigger. Then he saw something even more horrible, he saw Satoshi dart out of the bushes wielding a wooden staff, then crack Yoshi around the back of the head. Yoshi was down long enough for Satoshi to disarm him, but Satoshi didn't stop there, he put the nunchuks at Yoshi's side, then leant back, beckoning Yoshi to come at him; and he did. The two were mired in vicious combat within seconds, swinging both wildly and precisely at each other; anyone else would've thought they were sworn enemies. Luckily for Kyo, Masako and the others were totally unaware that this had happened, although they had heard the struggle they were unaware who it was between, Kyo figured it would be better to keep it that way. He told them that the clanking sound was Shuuya dropping his gun, and that he was going to disarm him, he wasn't. Kyo intended to get involved and stop this fight, even if he had to knock one of them unconscious.

Kyo was a lot of things, but average was definitely not among them. Standing well above 6ft with wild hair, he was definitely eye catching. He had his interests but many people thought him to be rather unusual, the fact that he often manufactured his own weapons at home, regardless of whether or not he used them had earned him the label of violence junkie. However, on this island, he was someone else entirely, he barely spoke if he didn't need to, he walked ahead of everyone else, and since he'd been here he hadn't even smiled once. This wasn't bottled up emotion like everybody else, he really had taken some initiative, he was the leader now, he just needed to prove himself, he could tell from where he was that Yoshi had used the combat drugs, he could also tell that Satoshi wasn't exactly in a stable state of mind. He knew this because he was scanning for such things, psychology was one of the most significant factors, he just hadn't expected morale to break so very quickly.

Kyo picked himself up and ran full pelt up the hill, he was almost brought to a standstill seeing Shuuya close up, there was even a crater in the ground where his head had been, it was truly vile. Then he saw to Yoshi and Satoshi. By this point Satoshi had the staff pointed at Yoshi's neck, Yoshi was darting from side to side looking for an opening. Kyo walked up behind him, slowly, before Satoshi saw him he lunged forward and put Yoshi in an arm lock. Yoshi didn't yell but he struggled as much as he could before Kyo slammed him against the ground, strength was no factor here, it was all about the element of surprise. Satoshi didn't do anything for a while, then he cried out and leapt at Kyo, Kyo put his knee on Yoshi's back to free his own arm then grabbed Satoshi's staff, twisted it round and knocked Satoshi over, it was then that the others came up the hill.

Satoshi was in a daze, having hit his head relatively hard and Yoshi, who was feeling the after-effects of the serum, had stopped struggling altogether, he would have no real recollection of what he had done, for the moment. What the others saw was Kyo, with his knee on a disarmed Yoshi's back and a barely conscious Satoshi on the other side of him, staff in hand, with a brutally murdered corpse up on the hill and a rifle in close proximity it was difficult not to come to the conclusion they came to.

"Yoshi? Yoshi?"

Masako cried

"Get off him! Get off!"

Kyo immediately complied and stood to his feet. He looked left and saw Atsuko with tears streaming down her face, she promptly slapped him and pushed him aside so she could tend to Satoshi, Mitsuru, who was in utter shock, just shook his head while looking at his feet. With the shock of seeing what they thought he'd done to Shuuya, and the damage done to Yoshi and Satoshi, nothing really needed to be said, neither did Kyo have any desire to defend himself. He slowly walked away, Hanako motioned to go after him but Mitsuru put his arm out to stop her. Kyo wasn't really leaving, he was just keeping his distance, the group was never going to know as far as he was concerned, but two things would be happening, while they were tending to each other, he would be planning the escape, and when he could, Kyo would protect them from afar. It takes a different kind of friend to sacrifice everything to protect you from the truth, but Kyo was now of that disposition, he hoped he'd be able to make things right again, but he wasn't certain. For one thing he'd just sealed his ever-growing negative reputation, and for another, he didn't think he was getting out alive.

**Hanako**

It's difficult to make the best of such an overwhelming situation, heck it was difficult enough to take in the situation itself. Hanako had just seen her former friend turn into a killer before her very eyes then leave in shame, she thought she'd probably never see him again, there was no positive side to that. Her friends Atsuko and Masako could clearly pull something out of it, though they were clearly still experiencing the horror of what they'd just witnessed, were at least happy to be reunited with their respective boyfriends. This could be jokingly seen as a family reunion of sorts, granted it had a few holes in it, there was no sign of Kazuo, Ichiro, Tetsuya or Noboru and Kyo had just made tracks, but at least they were one step closer to being all together once more. Hanako imagined that their goal was still the same, head for the central settlement, which had miraculously remained free of danger zones, disregarding a few around the rim.

Although this settlement seemed like an optimum spot for anyone to head towards the group hadn't reached the point of losing all faith in the rest of the class. Granted the plastic girls had usurped the safe house, only to be burnt alive by some flamethrower toting maniac, but it could almost be expected of them, it was almost a relief that they had been taken out of the picture before they could do any real damage, though that in itself was a horrible thought. Besides, not all of them were dead, Sakura was still around, but on her own at least she couldn't do any real harm. Hanako tried to think about something else, she was sure everyone else was doing the same, everyone was on the brink of abandoning trust altogether, that would have been a disastrous move. After sitting in a circle for a while the group got to their feet and continued to move towards their destination. For the most part no words were exchanged, Satoshi was surprisingly quiet and Yoshi had to be carried by Mitsuru, it could only be assumed that Kyo had attempted to knock him unconscious, or worse.

Violence was just a part of life here, a big one. That was the thing, Hanako was a pacifist, and she also believed that there was good in everyone, so in a sense this was a bigger nightmare for her than for anyone else, but in another it was a good thing. Her views were what kept her lucid; some people were on the verge of cracking, some had already cracked, regardless of which it was, violence was the predicted outcome, having someone like Hanako around was sort of a morale boost, unyielding sensibility in the least sensible situation imaginable, kind of ironic if you thought about it. It wasn't as if everyone here was going to individually undergo some form of epiphany through nervous breakdown, someone might, but the sad truth was that the epiphany part was unlikely, the breakdown part was almost inevitable. It sounded arrogant to say but Hanako couldn't really picture any of them having rock solid resolve, but then she didn't see herself that way either, at present she just missed her home and family. If anyone would pull out of this it would be Satoshi, he was the leader type, psychologically the game seemed to be playing out predictably, Kyo had lost it, anyone who knew him could have seen that coming, all that was left was for Satoshi to leap up, take some serious initiative and come up with a plan to get them out of this, but what happens then?

Hanako didn't have time to finish that particular train of thought because they reached the settlement. Ghost town. Total ghost town. Fully furnished, traditional Japanese village, there were even cars in the drive, not that they'd do much good here, except for maybe making makeshift bombs out of the fuel inside or using them as cover for gunfire. There was a tall bell tower overlooking the town, Hanako marvelled at the stonework of it, it was something at least, having a nice place to hold up in, however as she looked up she could have sworn she saw something move, but she thought it was probably nothing. Suddenly a massive metal clunk sounded behind them, the door of the warehouse behind had opened. A voice sounded from the darkness, Tetsuya's.

"Hurry the hell up and get inside. Before he sees!"

Hanako noticed them first, corpses, lying next to each other, Suzuki and Shinji, the smell met Hanako's nostrils and cause her to almost fall over, but initiative once again took over, she ran inside with the others, just as the doors were closing a gunshot whistled past her head and hit the far wall, she cried out and fell to the floor. As the doors closed she turned around, four people were sat on the floor with a makeshift campsite in place, Noboru, Ichiro, Tetsuya and Ritsuko, however, there was something wrong, Ritsuko was lying on a rolled out sleeping bag, her shirt was off and there was bandaging around her stomach and across one of her breasts, the sleeping bag was stained with blood. Ritsuko was awake, but she was breathing heavily. Clearly, they had some catching up to take care of.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Calm Before The Storm

**Ichiro**

7PM, Osaka senior high school 3rd district coach parking bay. Year 2 class C standing lined up next to a shining bus printed with an image of the great dictator pointing towards the front of it. Ichiro stood, wide-awake and very excited, among his friends and classmates. This trip was to celebrate the end of their penultimate year, next year they would be seniors, then on to university. It was a brisk evening despite the time of year, there was a gentle fog rolling past. The trip was to Okinawa Island, where they would stay at a five star government approved hotel and engage in government approved activities, they would be free to move around the resort as they pleased and could leave the premises on the daily coach trips to the beach which left at 11:30 and returned hourly until the last one at 21:00, while at the beach they were allowed to go on guided scuba diving trips. Ichiro was thinking as a direct quote from the letter, he wasn't a fan of the country's government, never had been, though the history books had been edited, he was well aware of past dictatorships and how well they had turned out, chairman Mao, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin etc. always centred around lots of death mainly, he cast his mind back to something his music teacher had once said to him "This is what they call 'successful fascism' Where else in the world could you find something so sinister?"

This little saying had always stuck in Ichiro's mind, the teacher had said it with such indignation that it felt as if he'd quoted it from someone on one of those pirate radio stations, but still it was that sort of lateral independent speech that had made Ichiro realise how utterly fucked their nation really was, however at this point, waiting for the coach to leave, he didn't care anymore.

"Ichi?" Miho piped up she was standing in front of him, leaning against his chest

"Urr yeah?"

"You looked like you were miles away, what are you thinking about?"

"The usual."

"The government, technological stuff, me…"

"That's about right yeah"

"Don't start up about the government again" Said Satoshi as he double-checked his travel bag. "They've paid for this trip, _The Great Dick-tator _is finally doing us a solid and we don't want to jinx it."

"Like by calling him a dick?" Miho retorted

"….Shut up" Is all Satoshi could say, everyone around him burst into laughter.

This was why Ichiro was happy enough to accept the government for once, his friends were around him and were going to be for a two week (TWO WEEK) long excursion to supposedly the most beautiful place in all of the Japan islands, it didn't get much better. Ichiro was a moderately tall boy with glasses that he would look out of character without; he had short hair slightly raised at the fringe. He laughed a lot and had a friendly face but he was not the kind of person to get on the wrong side of as his frequently emerging temper matched and often outstripped his characterising enthusiasm. He had forged differing connections to his main friends, he was dating Miho, he shared with Yoshi a taste for forbidden rock music and would often attend underground gigs with him, he could talk about technology with Satoshi and he and Kazuo were both complainers, they often had similar things to complain about, indeed Ichiro was a likeable guy. At present he was observing everyone around him, Atsuko was helping Satoshi zip up his overloaded travel bag up while Tetsuya stood behind them laughing at him. Mitsuru emerged from the crowd as he had been knelt down tying his shoelace, considering how tall Mitsuru was it was amusing to see him stand up in this way. Kyo was talking to Hanako about something, he was smiling but Hanako looked more perplexed that anything, it was probably because Kyo was gleefully telling her about another of his unusual hobbies. Kaz and Yoshi were both in fits of laughter while Noboru was stood opposite them with a grimace on his face, Masako was there too but it appeared she was trying to ignore their conversation while giggling slightly at the same time which could only mean that either Kaz or Yoshi had just cracked some immature sex joke that only they understand, typical.

8PM The motorway to the airport, the coach had been moving for about 3 quarters of an hour at this point, the airport was exactly an hour away, the flight took off at 22:15 and landed at 23:30, after that it would be another 20 minutes on a new coach to the hotel.

"Full house, Jacks full of tens" Satoshi calmly stated

"How the fuck did you do that!" Spat a gaping Kazuo

"Skill" He replied

"Same answer every time" Yoshi mumbled under his breath

"He's probably cheating somehow, card counting or whatever." Tetsuya piped up

There was silence; Tetsuya had made a fatal error. He'd forgotten that he himself was the only one of them to ever try cheating, the word try is used because at the point when he tried; he was very quickly caught. With 5 cards concealed in his sleeves. Satoshi was never going to let him forget this, but mentioning cheating in this manner wasn't just a window to Satoshi, it was a window to all of them, laughter suddenly exploded from the back of the coach.

"Tetsuya you can hardly talk!" Atsuko laughed

"Where are they this time? Your shoes?" Satoshi probed.

"Your ass?" Kyo added

"Your mother's ass?" Yoshi, Kaz and Mitsuru called out, simultaneously.

They all burst into laughter. Save for Noboru who was as usual irritated by their childish sense of humour.

"Every day. EVERY DAY!" He hollered.

Ichiro sighed and turned to look around the coach, Kazuo and co. were still busy laughing while Tetsuya had his head buried in his hands on the table and had turned a bright shade of red because he was in hysterics, Satoshi was trying to revive him as best he could. Around the bus students were crowded in small pockets, the plastics, the jocks, the pervs, they were all there, no-one had called in absent for this trip, it was just too good of an opportunity.

8:43 PM. It was dark outside now. The mood and enthusiasm of the bus had dropped slightly, strangely a lot of people had fallen asleep, save for some of the boys, last time Ichiro check only two: Kazuo was reading and Mitsuru was playing a gameboy. Ichiro felt somewhat tired himself, he looked around one last time. Mitsuru had succumbed and was hunched over the seat with the gameboy in his lap, Kazuo was still reading but he stopped momentarily to rub his eyes. Ichiro felt Miho's heartbeat against him as she slept. He looked over at the bus driver, not even remotely tired; clad in uniform, those really shiny boots, gas mask. Wait, what? Ichiro looked over at Kazuo and motioned towards the bus driver, Kazuo had already seen it, his eyes widened briefly then shut as he lost consciousness and slumped down onto the seat beside him. Ichiro felt dizzy, he began to talk to himself.

"Hey. Heeey. How cumzit the driver gets a, whatchicallit mask, oshygen, that's it, an oshygen mask and we don't? Doesn't seem fair to me if you want my point of vieeew. S'just not effical, or whatsit, safety hazard? Yeah. Prepare for cabin decompression, keep your tray tables up and your seats in the full upright position…."

8:42 AM two days later. Ichiro woke up with a start. He could barely see anything, his vision was blurred. He could feel something cold against his neck. Slowly he ran his hand up over his skin, he was about to reach it when the intercom burst into life.

"Ahem. May I have your attention please, congratulations, your class has been hand picked to participate in 2013's annual Experimental Youth Combatant Program."

The program? Fuck. That word was all that ran through Ichiro's mind, again and again, the rest of the speech as they say is history. Ichiro sat in his box twanging the string of the compound bow he'd been allocated. It was different from a normal bow in that it had a more complex firing system and it was more powerful. The moment the bars slid back Ichiro crawled his way out of the cage with all haste.

9:01 AM. Ichiro walked into the main settlement. This was odd, it was a small collection of houses, barns and a bell tower, and something was amiss. Ichiro heard panting. Laboured breathing. Moving towards him. He wheeled around, he instantly recognized a panicked Noboru rushing towards him. Noboru saw him and started flailing his arms to the left; his voice was overtaken by something. A sound that exploded through the air, cutting it in half. A gunshot. It met the ground next to Ichiro's foot; he turned towards the barn behind him and ran. The metal door was heavier than he thought. His arms ached and strained as he pulled it, he felt his muscles stretching as though they were about to tear like cloth. The metal bent. A second shot had buried itself in the door inches from his head, his ears rang. He heaved the door; it moved inch-by-inch, still not far enough open to let anyone in. Just a little farther. BANG. A third shot. Ichiro felt a sudden shock. He'd been hit.

The shot had hit the bag Ichiro had slung over his back, stopping just short of his neck. Noboru arrived and placed himself in the gap in the door. He cried out with the effort of pushing it open then disappeared around the other side. Ichiro let go of the door. BANG. He saw it. The air trail had gone right past his eye line. Ichiro had no time to contemplate this; he inclined his foot and whirled around the door. Him and Noboru grabbed it and slowly pulled it shut.

1:43 PM: Ichiro and Noboru hadn't spoken a single word to each other since then. They busied themselves with setting up a makeshift living arrangement. The big door was left as it was, though neither of them had verbalised their thoughts they both knew that the action of heaving the door open would alert them to an intruder long before any danger could properly ensue. This voluntary silence and unwillingness to face the current situation was never going to last, Ichiro was well aware of that and he hated himself for not being able to properly approach the situation. He sucked it up and spoke.

"I'll tell you something we can be happy about." He chimed.

"Oh yeah?" Noboru tiredly replied, his high pitched voice was somehow relieving to hear.

"We can thank fuck that the kid up there with the sniper rifle is such a god awful sharp shooter." Ichiro laughed.

Noboru laughed out loud. "That's a really good point, if it'd been someone who was good with guns we'd be out there rotting right now!"

"Damn right, if it'd been Yuji or Suzuki or…."

"You." Noboru interrupted.

"I suppose, but I wouldn't have shot you, come to think of it neither would Yuji, or Suzuki. Damn, who the hell is up there?"

"Well the shots were always almost on target so I'm guessing a shaky aim, someone with the jitters maybe?"

"Or someone too puny to handle the kickback." Ichiro added before continuing:

"Yeah, one of those little pervert fuckers. I wouldn't put it past them, figure they'd shoot anyone with a dick, with one less penis in the world there's one more 6 billionth of a chance they'll get laid this side of the apocalypse."

Noboru once again erupted into laughter, however there was something else resonating beneath his laughter, which made him stop. It was screaming.

Ichiro slowly peered through the gap in the door, the screaming had since stopped. There was someone lying out there leant against the near wall. Ichiro could see from the tights that it was a girl and from the one free hand tanned with blood that she had been hurt. This was a dilemma. On the one hand Ichiro couldn't just leave this anonymous girl out there to die; on the other hand if he went outside he was a prime target for the sniper. He further scanned the area around the girl and something occurred to him, she was moving and therefore alive and yet she was not being shot at, something was amiss. He looked a little farther forward and saw it; there was a small collection of metal barrels forming a barrier between her and the gunner. Ichiro decided he could not let this girl bleed to death mere feet from safe sanctuary. He made a small gap in the doorway, wide enough to quickly move through but narrow enough not to attract attention. He reared back slightly and signalled to Noboru who had been taking careful aim for some time, he let fly a bolt from the compound bow directly at the stone tower, Noboru was a practised archer and had a lot of skill with the weapon. Ichiro dashed into the space between the wall and the barrels. The girl was Ritsuko, she was not a real acquaintance of Ichiro's, she was pretty but not in a plastic way, cute was more the operative word, high pitched voice, typical Japanese school girl, save for the fact that she was a little taller and skinnier than normal. Her sailor suit school uniform was stained with blood and she was breathing heavily. Ichiro briefly signalled her to stay quiet. He checked her wound, it hadn't yet stopped bleeding and judging from the colour of her skin and the sound of her breath septicaemia was likelihood. Ichiro scooped her up gently and remained crouched. This was the moment of truth, he had to stay down and be fast, with no arrows keeping him busy the shooter was free to take his shots. He picked his moment and ran. Sure enough a shot hit the wall behind him. Reacting Ichiro half dashed, half leaped into the open doorway. Noboru, who was already poised, pulled it shut. They both crouched over to examine Ritsuko; the blood was coming from below her shoulder.

"Noboru." Ichiro stated

"…Yeah?" He replied.

"The bullet wound is still bleeding and it's under her shirt, you have to help me take it off."

"Are you kidding me!" Noboru yelled in response but the look on Ichiro's face forced him to silently nod.

"Ritsuko." Ichiro whispered into her ear.

"Ichiro?" She quietly replied.

"I need to take the bullet out of you so I'm going to take your shirt off, just tell me if I'm hurting you ok?"

"O..kay" She whispered.

The two boys laid out a sleeping bag from Ichiro's daypack and unzipped it to cover more ground before carefully picking Ritsuko up and laying her down on it. Ichiro carefully unbuttoned her shirt and undid the small navy blue tie. Ritsuko's jacket was in her daypack so he didn't need to worry about that. He lifted her up, supporting her thin neck with one of his arms and carefully opened the shirt up. Noboru gently slipped it the rest of the way off. The bullet was located in the space between her left shoulder bone and ribcage, blood had dried on her skin and dyed her white bra red. Ichiro tore the bandage strip open with his teeth and pulled out a length of it before he started properly examining the wound. He leant closer to Ritsuko and spoke to her softly.

"I'm going to look at the wound now, this is going to hurt so I've wrapped a wooden stick in cloth, if it hurts you can bite down on that."

Ritsuko groaned in compliance as Ichiro placed it between her teeth. He took a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit. This was the difficult part. Ichiro steadied himself and moved the tweezers into the reddened hole. He could see the bullet; a black object buried a few centimetres inside. He moved the tweezers further in but he had to open them slightly to grip the bullet. The metal tool touched against the torn red flesh and Ritsuko cried out in agony. Noboru slowly comforted her vocally while caressing her forehead with the palm of his hand. A clinking sound indicated that the tweezers were touching the bullet, the side of it. Ritsuko flinched as Ichiro twisted the tweezers around to get a grip. He was near the end, one thing left. He gripped the bullet with the tweezers and leaned back over to Ritsuko.

"This is really going to hurt, make sure you bite down on the gag I've given you."

She looked at him and nodded with fear stricken eyes, Noboru offered his hand for her to squeeze, and she was quick to grab it. Ichiro held his breath and pulled. There was a gut wrenching tearing sound and Ritsuko bit down while half screaming. Blood began to flow from the open wound but Ichiro was quick to cover it with a white pad, he kept pressure on it while Noboru wrapped bandage around her left shoulder and down underneath her right arm until it was good and tight. Ritsuko turned and let the the gag fall from her mouth onto the ground, for a while she said nothing before asking:

"Have you ever done anything like that before?"

"…Not really, no." Was Ichiro's reply.

"That was amazing…Thank…you."

With that she lay back. Ichiro gave her a pain killer and some water but beyond that there wasn't much else he could do; he just had to hope she could hold on.

17:07 PM A knock on the door. At this point things had calmed, Ritsuko woke now and again but she was too weak to talk properly. This was the most interesting thing that'd happened all day, given that they had heard the sniper shooting a few seconds earlier. Noboru peered through and was met with a very flustered looking Suzuki.

"LET ME THE HELL IN! HURRY UP MAN!" He yelled.

Noboru looked back at Ichiro before pulling the door open. Pistol gripped in one hand he half fell through the door way and lay there panting. Ichiro briefly glanced at him to see if he was hurt, he wasn't. Suzuki was a very intimidating person; physically he was lean and sinewy but strong. He was quiet and introverted but had always been very popular, mainly because he was a musical prodigy, a multi-instrumentalist. He played guitar, piano, drums, bass guitar and his main talent was his utterly beautiful singing voice, a strong, powerful baritone. He had formed a band about a year back and was the only constant member, he did most of the work, Satoshi and Masako had both previously been members. If you wanted to talk to him you need only mention music, he was passionate about it to say the very least. Ichiro really couldn't relate, Ichiro liked the heavier side of music, metal, which was a forbidden pleasure. Suzuki also enjoyed rock but he preferred what he deemed to be more interesting renditions, incorporating things like funk and ska. He was a very different picture now, totally out of breath, eyes wide with fear.

"There's a fucking sniper out there!" He exclaimed

"Yup." Noboru simply stated.

"Don't ask as who it is because we have no idea." Ichiro added "but he got Ritsuko, hit her in the shoulder, we've taken care of the wound but it's possible she's septic."

"Shit man." Suzuki sighed. "This is so messed up."

They sat and talked until late that night, checking on Ritsuko constantly but it was very difficult to get comfortable. Eventually Suzuki got up and suggested that he go out and check if anyone was out there, his bravery impressed Ichiro. They opened the door for him. As he walked out two shots were fired, one came from the bell tower, aimed away from him towards someone else, the second came about ten seconds later. The second was different, louder, less precise. If Ichiro wasn't mistaken it came from a shotgun. Suzuki started returning fire with his pistol and disappeared around the corner. Ichiro could do nothing but pull the door shut, he didn't know that it was the last time he would ever see Suzuki alive.

06:30 AM. The shooting had gone on in staggered increments for a very long time, it was clear that the two were mired in something of a standoff. The assailant had now stopped shooting but Suzuki's shots could still be clearly heard. He was firing at 3 to 5 second intervals; this was the most frequently fire had continued during this fight, until now it had been a maximum of ten shots per hour. Ichiro assumed he had his enemy pinned down, then he heard it. A shotgun fired from the other side of the warehouse, it was followed quickly by a sound similar to a meat tenderiser. An impact against flesh. Before Ichiro could even react there was a second shot, slightly closer, the sniper. A seemingly endless silence followed and Ichiro could only assume that both of them were now dead, what mystified him was why Suzuki had been shooting at someone who was not there. It was then that Ichiro heard footsteps, slow footsteps, then another gunshot. Ichiro no longer cared who it was, he had to save whoever was out there. He heaved the metal door with both arms and it slid partway open, gingerly shuffling to the right he peered through the gap. It was Tetsuya.

"Hurry Tetsuya! Get inside!" He yelled.

Tetsuya complied very, very quickly and dashed through the door before falling down. Ichiro felt a sigh of relief, he'd finally been able to do something, and furthermore another of his friends was safe and sound.

11:01 AM. It happened very quickly, a storm of footsteps emanated from outside the warehouse. To Ichiro it was a knee jerk reaction now. He pushed the door open and beckoned them inside. They got in just as the first shot was fired. It was almost all of them, this was amazing. Miho, Satoshi (who the shooter narrowly missed), Yoshi, Masako, Atsuko, Hanako and Mitsuru. All at once. Miho leapt at Ichiro and embraced him tightly; she didn't let him go for quite some time. He explained Ritsuko's presence as best he could, thankfully it seemed as if she was getting better. Strangely and uncharacteristically the shooter kept firing at the door even after it was pulled shut, Ichiro was too elated to care though. Unfortunately this day, the second day, should have been cherished far further, for it was one of the calmest days there would be on Urashima island, Ichiro would have to see some of his friends die, the more of them were with him, the more likely that was.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: This is only the Beginning

**Kazuo**

Kazuo stretched his hand to the end of the kitchen cabinet. His hand probed left and right moving various jars aside to get to the one he wanted. He pulled his hand back out, in it he held a bag of coffee. He tipped 3 spoonfuls into the filter and set the kettle up before turning to look out of the window. It was quiet outside, the sky was somewhat greyed over and the air was calm. This would've been a nice place were it not for its current purpose. He looked up towards the top corner of a window. A fly was nestled in a tiny dusty hollow. It sat there before a small spider pounced on it, digging its fangs into the insect's exoskeleton. Kazuo smiled to himself and returned to the window, it was about four o'clock in the afternoon on the second day. Kazuo had just been letting the time pass; this tactic was never going to work and he knew it. Coming in to school after a holiday period having done none of the set work was one thing but waiting for 4 more days until his head involuntarily exploded was quite another. He had to think of something, he was at this point thankful that the government had lengthened the time frame in the first place but he had a feeling that it wouldn't last as long as a week. In any case it gave him time to think and to lay low. However, his travelling companion was making him feel uneasy. At this point she was upstairs resting, Kazuo had no intention of bothering her, he needed the alone time as much as she needed the rest, how she could sleep at a time like this was beyond him, he did admire her bravery in light of what had happened. Takahashi trying to get her to put out by threatening her with death was the kind of trauma that would throw most people straight off the deep end, not Sakura, she was a tough girl.

Most of his friends had hated her or at least disliked her. Her and her friends gave the impression that they thought they were above everybody else. A grotesque cocktail of arrogance and vanity, in light of their looks. They were rarely ever in any kind of relationships, they made themselves out to be something of a holy grail, something every guy wanted but would never get. They moved as a group of 5, there was Reika the control freak, Kyoko who was apparently a real gossip, Midori, who seemed to glare at everybody, Kanae, the shy one and Sakura, she always seemed to be smiling or laughing. Others described it as a mask, wearing a fake smile, Kazuo in all honesty never took any notice of them, he did feel a little gratified to hear them cheering him and the rest of the basketball team on but that was it. Now he felt very different, four of them were dead. Aesthetically Sakura was a beautiful girl, she had hair that ran down to just past shoulder length and curled only slightly at the ends, she at one point dyed it blue but was now leaving it as its natural colour. She was of Japanese origin but there was something of a European quality to her face, her slender nose and thin lips. She had green eyes and eyebrows that weren't quite symmetrical because one had been plucked a little more neatly than the other. She was, like everybody else wearing her uniform, everyone had found a change of casuals in their daypacks but changing clothes wasn't a priority. Her teeth were perfect and pearl white and she was often smiling so it was easy to see. She had a slightly high-pitched voice but not to the extent at which it became annoying, it could be turned down to a lower more serious pitch that sounded perfectly natural.

At this stage Kazuo wasn't sure if there was anything more to her affectionate attitude, but he tried not to think about it. He had been with girls before and was aware of how to talk to them and address such situations but he was by no means an expert. He'd been in a relationship with Hanako for a while the previous year and before that a girl from class B, but that was it. Getting into those situations was one thing but getting out of them was something else altogether. This train of thought had led him to a decision that he knew he was going to regret. First thing tomorrow morning he was going to leave. He would stay within close proximity to make sure that someone like Takahashi didn't turn up hoping to use the situation to his advantage. Fucking perverts. But he was certain that he couldn't stay, it was too much, he felt evil for doing it but he had to.

Later that night Kazuo was finishing off his fourth cup of coffee, the stuff from this kitchen was much nicer than the instant shit in the thermos he'd been given. In spite of the caffeine running through him Kazuo was feeling an onset of fatigue, he needed sleep and he knew it. He felt a hand run over his.

"Get some sleep Kaz, it'll help keep you, urm, lucid." Sakura's voice sounded from behind him.

"I'm alright, really I am. Need to keep watch."

"I'm capable of doing that as well you know." She spoke softly.

"What? Oh right, yeah, I know, but_"

"Besides, I think a better idea would be to just leave the transmitter by the window. That way it can detect somebody coming from any direction, it's a pretty loud beep." She laughed

"That's not a bad idea, it's getting late, I'll take a rest then." Kazuo was too tired to think straight.

The bedroom was predictably immaculate; it had a very comfortable looking double bed. Kazuo wasn't entirely certain of his safety but he thought he'd probably wake up if someone tried to get in. That or the beeper sounding would prompt them to run off. Kazuo took his jacket, and trousers off but left his boxers and shirt on, no time nor logic in putting pyjamas on. This bedroom was windowless, or the window was sealed so it was very dark, Kazuo kept the shotgun next to him just in case.

Later that night, when he heard the footsteps approaching he almost immediately took the gun up. The door creaked open and a female figure stood framed in the light. Sakura. Crying.

"Sakura? What's the matter?"

She drifted over and sat down on the bed.

"I… Only just started properly thinking about this. All the people I'll never see again. I don't trust them. They don't trust me. The day before yesterday I was so excited, all of you were ok in my book, I didn't hate any of you and now they want me to kill you all! This stupid fucking game! You can't turn a kid into a killer. I always thought if I had one good quality is was… It was that I was trusting and liked people right away, but now… Now I don't trust anyone!" She sobbed

"I know, I know. Think of it this way, our friends aren't the enemy, the sick bastards running this game are. If our friends loose themselves to this game then it's just one more reason to beat it, we're better than this, no-one else has to die."

"Kaz… That sounded pretty heroic."

"I… It did? Well I don't have much of choice now do I. Hell I could be dead tomorrow."

Sakura looked down at her feet and half smiled. She wiped the tears away from her eyes then looked back at Kazuo.

"I'll tell you one thing, I do trust one person."

Kazuo felt her hand moving up his left leg. When he looked up she was inches away from him, this wasn't good. She was far too close. He had to back away. He had to pull away. Her other hand was on his cheek now. He could feel her breath. He had to stop this. He couldn't.

**Satoshi**

It was at about 1 in the afternoon on the third day that Satoshi woke up. Well in truth he'd been awake the whole time, but in terms of memory it was then that it all came flooding back. The attack on Yoshi was obviously the main thing. What he did in reaction was somewhat unexpected; he got to his feet and walked to the back of the warehouse. Beckoning Yoshi to come with him. The entire time he'd been inside gunfire had been hammering at the closed door, Satoshi had also taken this into account, he sat with his legs crossed in the farthest corner, away from the sound of incessant shooting and signalled Yoshi to sit down too.

"Yoshi, do you remember what happened?"

"I… I killed Shuuya… Didn't I?"

"You did, the combat drugs started effecting you, that's your excuse, remember, those drugs aren't so you can protect yourself, they turn you into the great entertainer, someone who'll kill in elaborate, gruesome ways to please a crowd. I don't have the same excuse, I tried to kill you."

"Until Kyo stopped us."

"I don't know if he was trying to make peace or if he'd just gone crazy, but he did stop us. I think we should keep this our secret for now, tension within the group is not the best thing."

"I agree, so what do we do?"

"Well apparently there's a sniper out there. I seem to have come to my senses so if you're up for it I think we should go get rid of him."

"Are you insane! He's got a fucking rifle and he's in a bell tower, we'll be sport for him!"

"I noticed a whole load of cover moving up to the bell tower when we were walking in, we can do it."

"And then what? Kill him?"

"No, just disarm him. I think we've witnessed enough killing for now and what's more we're with everyone else, our friends seeing you harpoon someone through the gut wouldn't go down too well."

"I'd rather you didn't put it that way but I see your point. Fuck it, let's do this."

**Keitaro**

Keitaro Nakata was a quiet boy. No one really bothered talking to him, he was a non-entity most of the time. There were two key reasons for this, the first was that he always kept away from everyone else and the second was that he was rich; he was the son of a high up government body. This had moulded him into a very arrogant creature. His classmates may have avoided him but he couldn't stand them. He was an intelligent boy, talented to say the least. He was a musician; he played the obo for the school orchestra. He separated his hatred for his classmates into categories. Bracket A was 'false talent' or 'showing off'. It concerned those who also played instruments but lacked skill or precision, he could play a beautiful concerto piece on his obo and the girls would just clap a little, then they'd go down to the basement and scream as that rat Suzuki strummed out a few chords on his electric guitar, a filthy instrument in itself. It wasn't music it was testosterone. The same rule applied to Satoshi's movie soundtrack piano or Sho's hideous technique of slapping bass strings with his thumb.

Bracket B also only really applied to guys, 'good-looking'. Keitaro was a very unattractive character; he had puffed out cheeks and greasy hair. His ugliness wasn't entirely beyond his control however, he smirked and glared everywhere he went, projecting a constant air of hostility, ironically enraged by the image he was creating for himself by doing so. He was well aware that he wasn't nice to look at and it made him angry and jealous of anyone who was good looking let alone anyone who broadcast it, guys like Yuji, Shinji and Sho were the case in point. Arrogant bastards, they knew they were handsome and they let everyone else know.

Bracket C was girls in general, he hated them all purely because he saw them as a gaggle of whores, Keitaro's mother had died in childbirth and his father had gone through a multitude of women since, Keitaro hated them too, he saw women as users and liars but the fact that he'd never experience the pleasure of their affection so far as he knew infuriated him. The final bracket, D was once again specific to guys, any guy who in good physical condition or played a sport. Keitaro got no exercise and it had a certain effect on his personality, it made him unenthusiastic. You can tell when someone is in good shape because they will harbour a seemingly endless tap of energy and enthusiasm. Keitaro himself had not made this link, he just thought they were show off testosterone pumps with too much ego. The rowers, the basketball team and the baseball team were the prime suspects; the one real problem child was the guy who traversed all three of his categories. Satoshi, rat bastard, he hated everything about him, Satoshi had used to be a small, unpopular nerdy kid, now he was popular but his personality hadn't changed. That wasn't supposed to happen but it had. Satoshi had broken the rules.

All this evidence would mean that Keitaro would have been expected to take this opportunity by the reigns. The opportunity to kill these 'indecent' and 'plebeian' children. Indeed he did. Unfortunately his father had some level of objection to him being a part of this game, and objection that was largely futile, however thanks to his interjection Keitaro's chances of victory were bolstered. Wheels were greased such that he was handed one the best weapons in the game, the sniper rifle. Keitaro had never used a gun in his life but he found himself able to learn the fundamentals quickly. He was in the chamber closest to the settlement and established himself up in the bell tower very quickly. His first victim was almost Noboru, who fell under bracket D because of his big ego but Noboru got away, just. He managed to miss Ichiro too which was doubly frustrating. Later on that day he hit Ritsuko, she was a girl which was cause enough for hatred, he didn't kill her nor did he kill Mr. Big Hero Ichiro when he ran out and rescued her. His anger at this was vented later on when he spied two big time hate targets blasting each other. He decided to see if the musical hack Suzuki would defeat the good looking sports all trust Shinji and Tetsuya, his jumped up drama queen accomplice, it turned out the other way around. Keitaro waited for a smile to find its way across Shinji's face before he blew it in half. He thought his aim was starting to get better however Tetsuya got away. It was a long time before the next target turned up but it was a grand haul. So many in fact that it took Keitaro a long time to decide, he saw Satoshi just in time to watch them run through the metal door to safety. He spent the next hour burying shots in the door and cursing himself for missing such an optimum chance to kill his nemesis (who was blissfully unaware of Keitaro's hatred for him). Then he saw the metal door open again.

Keitaro instantly recognised the head of mid-length hair dashing past the barrels. Satoshi. This time it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He tried to aim at his head but similarly to earlier an arrow pinged off the wall next to him and distracted him, by which Satoshi was moving through cover. He was always just outside of the crosshair, zigzagging back and forth behind the barrels. It was infuriating! This stupid, vulgar little worm couldn't keep still long enough to_

"Don't move Keitaro."

What! How did this happen? Keitaro instantly recognized Yoshinori Ikari's gruff low toned voice. Yoshinori was on the rowing team, prime hatred target.

"I have a harpoon loaded into a launcher and aimed at your head; if you move to attack me or shoot Satoshi down there I'll kill you."

"I… I…" Keitaro was lost for words, and then tears began running down his face. "I'M SORRY! I'M NOT PLAYING THE GAME! I'M NOT! I'M NOT" He bawled "I WAS JUST PROTECTING MYSELF! I DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT ANYONE! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME YOSHI! I ALWAYS LIKED YOU!" Tears were draped down his face and snot was leaking out of his nose.

"Give me the gun Keitaro." Yoshi calmly replied.

Sobbing, Keitaro handed Yoshi the gun. Yoshi first took out the ammunition then went about taking the gun apart. He placed the main cylinder under his foot and stamped on it, shattering the delicate outer shell. A second stamp bent the chamber rendering the gun useless. Yoshi looked back at Keitaro.

"You're pathetic. Leave, now."

Keitaro nodded and walked slowly down the stairs. By the time he got out into the forest the tears would be replaced by rage but neither Yoshi nor Satoshi knew that, they were just happy to be rid of him. For the moment.

**Noboru**

As far as he was concerned Noboru had dealt with the situation pretty well. One thing had affected him though, Ritsuko. Seeing her lying there dying was the most horrible thing he'd ever had to deal with. Up until about half past three in the afternoon on the third day. Having gotten rid of Keitaro earlier the rest of the group were outside. Noboru was sat on his own examining the weapon he'd ended up with, a halberd. It was a combination of an axe and a spear that was about 2 metres long, it had been irritating to carry so he'd snapped off part of the handle making it about half its original length, still a serviceable weapon. As he sat there he heard something, coughing, spluttering. He turned to see Ritsuko; blood was coming out of her mouth. Noboru dashed over but part of him knew there was nothing that could be done.

"Ritsuko! Come on! Stay with me! Stay with me!"

Noboru spoke futilely as she slowly succumbed to her septic wound. Noboru put his hand on her cheek, it was ice cold.

"Please! Don't die!"

"N… Noboru... Thank you for everything."

He knew it from hearing her say that. Her erratic breathing fell to silence and her arm went limp, dropping out of Noboru's grip. She was gone. Noboru sat there for a long time as people drifted around him, reacting to this casualty one by one. Ichiro took her outside and buried her. It was about 4 hours later at dusk that Noboru went outside. He found Yoshi, Satoshi, Mitsuru and Ichiro playing 2 a side basketball on a court. He ran up and kicked the gate open.

"How can you play at a time like this?" He yelled.

Satoshi gripped the ball in his hands and turned to face Noboru who continued.

"Ritsuko is dead! Who knows who'll die tomorrow? You just stand there and play a game while all this is happening around you!"

Satoshi retained a calm demeanour and turned to face Yoshi.

"What was the score?" He asked coolly

"We're down by a basket." Yoshi replied.

"I need a breather, Noboru, take my place?"

"You can't just_"

Satoshi walked slowly up to Noboru and placed the ball in his hands before leaning over and whispering in his ear.

"This isn't denial, think about it. How many times after this are we gonna be able to play basketball together. We have 4 days, let's use our time wisely."

Noboru took the ball from him and walked slowly into the ring. Satoshi watched as Noboru played, it was an important milestone for both of them. Noboru had come to terms with the situation and Satoshi was a leader again.

**Mitsuru**

Mitsuru caught the ball and rebounded it back to Ichiro. He wasn't on the basketball team back at school. He was on the rowing team along with Yoshi and Satoshi. The basketball team consisted of Kazuo, Satoshi, Yuji, Shinji and Sho. Gendo and Tenjin were substitutes. Since none of them were playing now Satoshi had tapped out it was a fair game. Mitsuru being as tall as he was thought himself quite an adept basketball player but rowing had appealed to him more, joining multiple sports teams was very time consuming so not many people did it, Satoshi somehow managed to be on three. It felt as if things had taken a better turn, at least for a little while, given that earlier that morning:

"Ahem, ahem. Good morning little warriors. A new day after a decidedly lacklustre performance yesterday. One death! One! Shuuya Tokugawa got it good after making use of the combat enhancer we supplied and going mental with his elephant gun. Someone took his sorry ass down with a sneak attack, very entertaining but not sufficient for one entire day, other than supplementary footage in other facets during the night, a very interesting development indeed, but I digress. We need to be working a little harder I feel. I don't think I need to tell you that unless someone dies by 13 minutes past 9 this evening every single collar will be detonated. End of story."

It didn't sound like good news but one casualty is probably the best news they could possibly get in this place given that a day without any meant they were all going to die. They had 4 days left supposedly so a little recreation on the side was no bad thing. The girls and Tetsuya were all off watching from the sidelines cheering the guys on. It was a kinda nice atmosphere.

"Common Yoshi!" Masako screamed

"How can I when you hit that pitch?" Yoshi replied, wincing.

"Just score this next shot and finish it, I'm bored." Tetsuya moaned.

"Then you should've got in the game when you had the chance!" Satoshi retorted from just outside the line.

"Oh shut up." Tetsuya snapped.

They all laughed and continued playing. By nine o' clock it had gotten very dark so they all sat inside one of the houses where it was light and warm.

"It creeps me out how clean this house is" Hanako stated looking back and forth cautiously.

"They're all like this." Replied Miho "Just last year this place could've covered in blood for all we know."

"Don't talk like that." Hanako said, shivering.

"We have to face our situation at some point." Said a headstrong Noboru.

"Yeah he's right." Satoshi added "We have time enough, we'll deal with it and come up with a plan soon but right now I think we need some time to get our breath back."

"That's a good point." Nodded Mitsuru. "At least we're all together."

"Most of us." Yoshi corrected him. "Kyo's gone."

"Yeah." Said Tetsuya. "Plus, no Kaz."

"Shit you're right!" Yoshi piped up again "I hadn't thought of that. We've found everyone else. Haven't seen even a glimpse of him."

"I know, I really hope he's OK..." Hanako murmured.

"That should be something we need to take care of first then." Satoshi said with a certain dynamism "A few of us can go out and look for him tomorrow."

"Do we really need to risk that?" Miho replied "I mean we're all here now, safe. If I know Kazuo he'll be taking care of himself. We're bound to run into him eventually right?"

"No. I agree with Satoshi." Mitsuru said. "It unnerves me that he's on his own, I'll go out first thing tomorrow. Now I think you guys should get some sleep."

"I'll stand guard first" He said. "We'll do it in shifts"

"I'll go sec_" Yoshi wasn't able to finish for a cluttering noise coming from the house next door. Someone was moving around in there.

The group all congregated quietly outside. Mitsuru took up the sword he'd gotten from Yuji, Satoshi readied his Bo staff and Yoshi took his harpoon launcher. Noboru had taken the unpleasant task of burying Suzuki and had found his pistol so he gave it to Ichiro, took up Shinji's shotgun and they waited outside. They were confident enough not to feel the need to go into the house with the guns, still assured that students who posed a real threat were few. Mitsuru watched as Satoshi went left into the living room and Yoshi went upstairs. The noise had since stopped. Mitsuru slowly edged into the kitchen. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer. He couldn't help but think of all the corpses he'd had to see. He thought of seeing the smile on Yuji's dead face. The kitchen was silent as the grave. Light cast across the white counters from the moon. Nobody in there, Mitsuru pointed the sword ahead of him, then he realised something. Between the three of them none of them had their beepers, they were all back in the other house! This assailant could be right behind him and he'd never_

There was a sound from upstairs. It sounded like a hot air balloon firing up. The temperature seemed to have risen. Wait. The other house. The big one that… The flamethrower! Mitsuru ran full pelt up the stairs that were now framed in orange light. He got up to the hallway. The heat hit him like a speeding car almost knocking him down. Curtains of flame violently devoured the walls. There, in the dead centre of the hallway, was Yoshinori. Right at the back of the hallway was the assailant. Mitsuru couldn't see him very well but he could tell it was Hiroshi. A detestable character and now he was killer, not surprising. Yoshi turned back to look at Mitsuru. Mitsuru saw every feature of his face illuminated in orange light. Time slowed down. He looked at every contour; the dark indents around his eyes. His thin nose. His long black hair blown across his face. The sadness in his eyes. The wood boarding fell from the roof and Yoshinori Ikari disappeared.

"YOSHI!" Mitsuru screamed before being knocked back.

He could see fire moving around him. It was going to block his escape. He had to run. Mitsuru half stumbled down the stairs, grief already choking him. A bewildered Satoshi appeared from the other side of the house. Mitsuru grabbed him and dived out of the front door just ahead of the flames. They both hit the ground with a violent thud. Mitsuru rose to his feet and turned around. Flames and smoke engulfed the rest of the house. It fell with a massive bang, suppressing the fire. The dust cleared to reveal clarity and grief. Mitsuru sank back onto his knees. He knew people were crying behind him but he couldn't hear them. His close friend, Yoshinori Ikari, funny, smart, approachable, had been taken by the game. Yoshinori Ikari was dead. It had really begun now.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Love and Fury

**Yoshinori**

Walking up the stairs of the house was when Yoshi first glimpsed him walking by. He had something held lazily in his right hand just out of focus. Some kind of gun. Though Yoshi himself was armed he had no real intention of killing this person even in retaliation. He walked slowly up the stairs. The intruder poked his head out of the side door to see who it was. Yoshi instantly recognized the face of Hiroshi Kutsuki; he was a detestable sort, one of a group dubbed 'the pervs'. That group shared several common denominators, they were all short in stature, they were all unpleasant in attitude and they all had seemingly no control over their vocal inhibitions when girls were around. It was unusual to ever see one of them in a position of power but thanks to this stupid game Hiroshi now was, he had a flamethrower in his hands. Yoshi immediately came to the conclusion that Hiroshi had been the one who burned that mansion to the ground and that he would probably not hesitate to do the same here, unless Yoshi could talk him out of it. While Hiroshi was now shaking Yoshi could tell he hadn't used the combat drugs else he would be dead already.

"Hiroshi, you need to calm down." He said softly

"Me? Calm down? You have a fucking harpoon pointed at my face!" Hiroshi half screamed half hissed

"You have a flamethrower pointed at mine." Yoshi replied "I'll put the harpoon down if you put the flamethrower down. No one needs to get hurt here."

Hiroshi slowly moved to put the weapon at his feet. Yoshi did the same before standing back up. Suddenly Hiroshi stamped on the flamethrowers trigger. A lick of flame tore its way up the left wall and spiralled across the ceiling back towards the ground like a coiled viper. Yoshi had to think rationally. Hiroshi at this point was doing nothing of the sort. He was picking the flamethrower back up while laughing maniacally. Yoshi looked back just in time to see Mitsuru on his way up. The roof boarding began to creak. Yoshi poised on his knees and dived forward hearing an earth shattering crash behind him. He had to act. He grabbed the harpoon gun out of the debris. He aimed it at Hiroshi's flamethrower, closed his eyes and fired. He missed. When he opened his eyes he saw the exact thing he was praying wouldn't happen. The harpoon was imbedded in Hiroshi's chest. Before Yoshi could think what to do next Hiroshi stumbled back. He stumbled out of the window.

Yoshi felt the harpoon's rope tense and before he knew it he was dragged out arms first. He felt himself hit the hard ground but it didn't stop there. He continued to roll at what must have been a 75-degree angle down a long verge. Eventually he felt the ground even out again, for the most part. He was lying on something else. Yoshi picked himself up and looked down, it was dark but he could tell Hiroshi's corpse was beneath him. Great. Yoshi could imagine what Hiroshi would look like in daylight. Covered in shards of glass. Clear hole through his chest. Stained in blood. Yoshi left the harpoon next to him. He didn't care about using it in self-defence any more, he'd killed three people with it, enough was enough.

In the dark Yoshi couldn't make out any path back to the settlement, hell he couldn't even see the flames of the house Hiroshi had just torched. He decided he would just walk to the coast to re-establish himself and then go back round via the island perimeter. The coast was farther away than he thought. It was about 10pm when he got dragged out the back of that house. He was only able to walk for a few hours before he had to stop and rest, ultimately falling asleep under a tree, when he awoke again he cursed his carelessness and immediately pressed on, still in a lot of pain. Limping forward he looked up to see the sun rising through the trees, every part of him ached but he didn't want to stop moving. He had cuts running up his arms and banded around his legs. His chest was covered in bruises and he had a gash across his cheek that stung intolerably. He knew that his daypack was back at the settlement and that he clothes were torn and ragged. If anyone was playing the game he'd be a prime target right about now, he was surprised nobody had found him during the night. He tried not to think about it.

Eventually he heard the calming sound he'd been striving for. Water breaking against the cliffs, he saw the infinite blue sea stretched out before him, he felt the cooling breeze, he smelt the salty air. This is part of the reason he headed for the coast. It would be good place to sit and recuperate. As Yoshi walked further forward he saw something. A person. He ducked behind a tree and observed. He soon realised who it was, but the situation mystified him. He was stood there, his mid length black hair blowing in the wind, his rolled up shirtsleeves and his karate stance-like posture. But something wasn't right. In his arms there was a girl. He was holding her as a hero would hold a girl in a Hollywood movie. There was one key difference. She was dead. He took a knee and gently let her drop and disappear over the edge of the cliff face. He wiped his hand across his eyes and brushed it back as tears leaked across his palm and then he got back up. Yoshi got out from behind the tree and stood in plain view before calling out behind him.

"Kazuo?"

**Tetsuya**

How many more times would Tetsuya have to be proven wrong? How many times could he be convinced he'd seen it all? How many times could he feel like he'd come to terms with this stupid fucking game? That's all he wanted to know. He'd just seen one of his best friends die. He dashed screaming towards the ashen rubble and dug insanely through it. Satoshi calmed him down though Satoshi himself was in tears. They found no body. This left only one option, they had to wait for the morning announcement to find out whether or not he was dead.

The 8 hours they sat in wait felt more like 100. It was horrible. Satoshi suggested sending out a search party but nobody wanted to take the risk. Eventually the sun rose and the squawk box clicked into life.

"Ugh…Good morning everyone. I'm afraid my announcement will be lacking in enthusiasm today, I needed to entertain myself last night and as a result I'm hung over. Also I think she took my credit card after I fell asleep. Enough of me, let's get down to the names. Sakura Sanada at 14:45pm, Takahashi Sugimura about 3 minutes later, Ritsuko Oda at half 3 in the afternoon and Hiroshi Kutsuki at 27 past 9. That's much better than yesterday. Keep it up and we might have a new record or whatever blah blah blah motivational crap. Have fun killing each other. Bye."

Tetsuya felt a rush of relief creep over him. Only four had died but then that made it 20, the class had literally been cut in half after only 3 days. But Yoshi was alive. That was great news, well sort of. This didn't mean he was alive and well, he could be hurt. Luckily Satoshi had already reached the same conclusion. The unfortunate part was that in all haste he'd sauntered off on his own to find Yoshi. Tetsuya concluded that he thought any extra company would've just slowed his search down. He was dead wrong but there was no convincing Satoshi, he'd stick to his convictions regardless of what others thought. In a sense this was an admirable quality but it did mean that rationality would be overlooked sometimes, like now. What Satoshi wasn't taking into account was that in going out on his own with a wooden stick for self-defence he was in danger almost as much as the possibly wounded Yoshi. At this point it was hopeless to after him. It would just mean another person at risk out in the wilderness.

The day dragged on, a tense atmosphere lulled over the group. Conversation was not a viable option, no meaningful conversation at any rate. All they could do was sit and hope the two of them would come back safe and sound. It wasn't until around 8pm that they found something out; Yoshi and Satoshi were not the only concern at hand. Anywhere else the noise they heard coming from the adjacent warehouse would've been dismissed as a bird or something falling on the floor, but on Urashima Island a kind of deep seeded paranoia set in given that everyone's life was at risk.

Ichiro lead the group to go and check what it was. This warehouse was constructed differently to the one they had previously called home, this one had a big metal door but it also had 2 smaller doors located on the east and west ends of it. The one on the west was the closest door and therefore the one Ichiro decided to use. Noboru followed close behind him while Mitsuru disappeared around the back. Tetsuya stayed close to the Noboru but not too close, partly because he wanted clear line of sight and partly because the guy hadn't showered in 3 days. This was a little hypocritical considering neither Tetsuya nor any of the other boys had. Ichiro slowly pushed the door open. Neither Noboru nor Tetsuya could see past him so they couldn't tell whether the coast was clear. That is until Ichiro turned around with a relieved smile on his face.

"There's nobody here." He said

It was an unusual sound. It sounded similar some form of hard punch but with a slight undertone of liquid. The closest comparison would be hitting a lemon or some other fruit with an axe. The second sound was far more grotesque. A crack that emanated internally like an echo inside of a balloon. The sound happened before the event. Ichiro began to twitch. His eyes widened. After that he remained still for a moment. Then with the second noise blood spurted out of his chest. Tetsuya felt it running warmly against his face. He could see a small metal point poking out of Ichiro's chest. It was then that it dawned on Ichiro. He knew he was going to die. Tears began to roll across his cheeks. His glasses dropped to the floor, broken. Then he did the same. His mouth quivered and spoke.

"Miho..." His final breath shivered out of his body. He was gone.

Tetsuya could only look on in horror. His friend was lying on the floor, blood was pouring out of a hole in his chest. His eyes were wider than Tetsuya had ever seen them. His expression was fixed. Tetsuya began to hyperventilate and reared back, shaking like a leaf. He composed himself long enough to look up. The weapon had been a kind of scythe attached to chain with a metal ring connected to it. The person holding it was Naoko Yamatako. She was shivering all over and crying buckets. Tetsuya's grief had not allowed room for rage and none was within him now, just pity. The quivering girl brushed her extraordinarily long hair away from her eyes. Tetsuya had liked Naoko; she used to get labelled with the nickname 'Sada' in reference to the horror movie 'Ring' because of her long hair and her quiet attitude. In truth she was a very funny, passionate person but she was also very shy. She tearfully spoke.

"I'm…so….sorry! I thought…he was gonna hurt me! Like the other boy did! It's not my fault please don't hurt me please!" She dropped her weapon on the floor. "See! I'm not bad! I didn't mean to do it! It was an accident! Please Noboru! Please!"

Noboru couldn't act in revenge after hearing that. His first impulse in fact was to put the pistol down, move over and comfort her. He put his arms on her shoulders and, masking his own grief, spoke to her.

"It's ok" He said, "We're not going to hurt you."

Shaking, Naoko nodded and rested her head on his chest. He moved forward and put his arms around her. Tetsuya felt an incredible onslaught of conflict within himself. He looked back up. Wait. Something was very wrong. Noboru was now shivering as well. Tetsuya heard a dripping sound. He looked down. Blood was dripping between the two of them. Oh no. Thought Tetsuya. Noboru's killed her. But he was wrong. Noboru reared back and turned around. Blood had stained his white shirt. His hand clutched his stomach. He lurched forward in agony. Tetsuya was once again stunned, aghast. Noboru reached out with his other hand.

"Tetsuya….AAAHHH!"

A torrent of blood came pouring remorselessly out of Noboru's neck. A massive gash had been torn clear through it. Noboru's head hung limply back. His body had lost any semblance of humanity; his head hung almost lower than his shoulders. It was grotesque. Noboru fell to the ground. Once again his eyes were wide and unmoving. Tetsuya had lost another friend. He felt a new emotion welling up in him, this time it was anger. Naoko had a blood stained bayonet held forward. She was no longer quivering. She was smiling.

"Oops" She said sarcastically "I didn't mean to do it. It was an accident."

Naoko had been top of the class in drama but Tetsuya hadn't thought this mattered until now. She put the tip of the bayonet she'd previously concealed right up against his throat. Tetsuya was frozen with fear. This girl had become something disgusting. To Tetsuya she wasn't human anymore. An icy, murderous, reptile blooded monster. No longer his friend. Tetsuya had seen the full extent of this game and it had a blade pointed at his neck.

Suddenly Naoko went limp. She fell to the ground with a loud thud. Mitsuru stood behind her having beaten her over the back of the head with that ladle he'd been given. He was steeped in sweat and tears were welling up around his eyes. He started walking up to Tetsuya and leaned down to speak to him.

"I'll go tell the others. Take this…" He handed Tetsuya two chains with a lock each, he must have found them inside. "…And lock her in."

Tetsuya stood for a while but when Mitsuru had finished moving the bodies he couldn't bear to stay any longer. He quickly locked the front door and started dragging her inside but then the anger began to catch up with him. He looked down at her. This girl had ruthlessly murdered two of his friends without even batting an eyelid. She was dangerous. He hated her. He hated every bone in that sick little bitch's body. As she lay there enjoying her little nap, anger overcame Tetsuya. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, allergy season and pollen always got the better of him. Tetsuya placed the handkerchief over Naoko's nose and mouth, and then waited. He could feel her breath underneath it gradually receding. Then she opened her eyes. She grabbed Tetsuya's wrist and tried to push him away but Tetsuya wasn't himself. His face remained expressionless. He held it there steady. Naoko's breath ran out. Her eyes rolled back and she gently fell back into the position she had been lying in before. Tetsuya got up and suddenly he released what he had done. Anger became fear. Tetsuya could only see one option, he turned around and ran.

There is rational fear and irrational fear. Tetsuya had a very prominent fear of snakes. This, considering the inherent lack of snakes in Japan other than the rare Mamushi viper (an encounter with which his fear originated from) was irrational. Irrational fear was something that had no reason to exist within the psyche but could only really be taken away, in Tetsuya's experience, by someone who had an almost opposite standpoint and was passionate enough to be able to help you past your fears. Usually a girl. Rational fear was what was coursing through Tetsuya, he wasn't heavily familiar with it. It happened in two waves. The first one told him to run, and run, and keep on running which is exactly what he did. Only when he stopped did the second article of fear reach him. He stopped in a clearing in the woods, it was very dark and almost totally silent. All of this contributed to the cold emotion choking his body and in a screaming voice informing his mind that he was now very much alone.

**Kazuo**

The memories of the second night lingered in Kazuo's mind. He remembered Sakura leaning in. He remembered how her lips felt. He remembered when she started unbuttoning his shirt. He remembered every detail of it. Both beautiful and guilt ridden. When it was happening neither one mattered but now they were both splintering his mind. This was especially important given that as he thought about this he was packing his bags up and getting ready to leave. He was wearing his casual clothes now, a T-shirt with an anime character on it and average jeans. He had just polished off yet another mug of coffee, there was now none left. Luckily Sakura didn't drink it, he just hoped she didn't wake up; she'd been sleeping all day. Then he felt her arms wrap around his shoulders and her sweet voice speak into his ear.

"Good morning sunshine."

"Morning. Well... Afternoon now"

She giggled, brushed against his shoulder and walked over to sit on the couch. Shit, she was only wearing a tight t-shirt and underwear. Kazuo looked at his pack deliberately.

"I think we're a little past modesty."

Kazuo ignored her and continued to look through his bag meaninglessly. He looked back up and she was leaning over the counter.

"Don't you?"

Kazuo smiled and shrugged. She laughed slightly and kissed him, making that damn purring noise that sounded so fucking suggestive. She moved back and walked over to the fridge.

"Sakura, last night was…" Kazuo stuttered

"Amazing?"

"No, well yes, but."

"But? But what?"

"I think we may have gone a little too far. Sakura, we… We barely know each other."

"I think we know each other quite well now."

"I… Yeah. Anyway, I feel as if it wasn't the right thing to do in this situation, I also think you're getting a little to emotionally involved." Kazuo braced himself

"Say what? You decide to tell me I'm getting too clingy only after_ Wait, why are you packing?"

"Sakura, I…"

"You're leaving! You were just going to high tail it out of here and leave me on my own! Wait, that's not quite correct, you decided to stick around to sleep with me!"

"That's not fair! I couldn't have predicted that_"

"Bullshit! You could've moved back or told me to stop!"

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings"

"Then why the fuck are you leaving!"

"I can't explain"

"Do you think this is a show? Do think this is all some emotional dependency? Dammit Kaz I care about you!"

"No you don't. You just think that. Because of this situation and all that's happened to you with Takahashi and_"

"You think I'm just some delicate flower who needed a big strong man to lean on! Is that it? You know what? Fuck you Kazuo! Fuck you!"

Kazuo put his hand on her shoulder but she pushed it off.

"No!" She yelled, "Stay away from me! You wanna leave? Well I'll make it easier on you! Stay here! I'm leaving."

With tears already running down her face Sakura ran out of the front door. Kazuo buried his head in his hands, ran them down his face, grabbed his stuff and dashed after her.

He'd already lost sight but he knew she probably would've run straight forward. Then he heard something. He heard her scream. Kazuo ran as fast as he could in the direction of the sound. He was terrified for her. She had to be okay, she had to be. Suddenly something stopped him in his tracks. He had a blade pointed squarely at his neck. Takahashi Sugimura. Fucking pervert. Fucking pervert with a scimitar.

"Hey there Kaz. What's up."

Takahashi flicked his eyes down and to the left, prompting Kazuo to look the same way. His throat constricted itself. Sakura was lying there; a stab wound in the middle of her chest was still bleeding. She wasn't moving. Kazuo looked back at Takahashi who smiled slyly.

"Little bitch wouldn't put out, just like last time, but this time I showed her what happens to little girls who_"

Kazuo's fist met his face, hard. He stumbled back, dropping his sword and fell onto one knee, then he looked back up in time to see two barrels worth of shotgun pointed at his face. Kazuo had a look of pure rage written in his eyes. Kazuo smiled sarcastically and raised his left eyebrow, then he moved his finger over the trigger with little more than a throaty grunt.

"Kazuo, don't_"

The sound of Takahashi's plea was drowned out by the fiery proclamation of the shotgun. Two solid, spin stabilized slugs were blasted from their cartridges and embedded in Takahashi's face within a quarter of a second. His skull split open like a snail's shell. Blood erupted out as both a liquid and a vapour and the limp body fell back. Kazuo felt nothing. He was too filled with pure rage to give a damn. Muttering something obscene, he dropped the shotgun and ran full pelt over to Sakura. He propped her up in his arms and ran his hand across her cheek. It was still warm.

"Sakura? Sakura? Don't do this to me! Wake up! Please wake up!"

Her eyes slowly opened, bloody dribbled out of the side of her mouth. She smiled and ran her hand across his cheek, mirroring his actions.

"Stay with me Sakura! You're going to be fine!"

"Kaz, silly, silly Kaz. You were wrong." She tapped his nose with her finger. "I did care. I really…"

She fell back and he felt her weight against his arms. He sat there with her for the longest time, largely silent but weeping so much he began to feel dehydrated at times. Night came and began to recede. Kazuo heard the first birdsong of the coming morning and saw the faintest glimpses of first light creep over Sakura's face. Though pale she was frozen in an elegant beauty, her mouth fixed in the kindest of smiles despite everything that had happened. Her beautiful death mask burnt through Kazuo, he wouldn't let her rot here. He couldn't send her home, but he could at least get her off the island.

He slung his shotgun over one shoulder along with his bag. He scooped her body up and began to carry her towards the nearby coast. This long, solemn, aimless and clumsy walk took him until sunrise, he often stopped along the way to rest and to try and combat the grief. Once there he sat very still for a long time, working up the courage to cast her over the cliff face, he thought it the most fitting burial. By the time he'd gotten to his feet and picked her body up again, the sun was fully risen, it was the fourth day. As he held her over the sea, he looked down at her smile and gently let her drop down into the water. He watch her become little more than a speck and vanish into the froth of the white horses breaking against the cliffs. That is when he heard Yoshi's voice.

"Kazuo?"

Kazuo turned and wiped the tears away.

"Yeah? Yoshi. Long time no see."

"Are you alright?"

"Not really, no. I lost her, Yoshi, I killed someone, too."

"Oh shit not you too. Was it that girl?"

"_That girl _was Sakura. No I didn't kill her, I killed Takahashi."

From then on Kazuo told him the entire story, end to end. Yoshi did the same for him. They decided to head back to the settlement together.

"So, did you love her?" Yoshi questioned as they walked.

"Love is a strong word." Kazuo replied

"You're avoiding the question"

"I think I might have done."

"So you killed Takahashi as an act of revenge then?"

"Pretty much"

"I've killed three people, don't let it get a hold on you, remember we don't want to get sucked in, we want to find a way out."

"Huh."

"What?"

"I said the same thing to Sakura. She said I sounded heroic. And then…"

"And then you did it. Right?"

"Yeah, yeah…"

Yoshi stopped briefly and looked around. Then he pointed east.

"We'll never find our way back in a day. We'll take a rest stop in that house, you need it and so do I"

"Good idea" Kazuo replied.

Kazuo needed more than R & R. He'd seen the real game, the real game had taken something he could never get back, but if day 3 was bad for those two, day 4 would be hell on earth.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Chaos Supreme

**Miho**

Ichiro. The boy Miho loved lay dead in a 3-foot deep open grave on some god-forsaken island. Miho herself sat over his body. She couldn't shake the feeling that life had sprung into fast forward. Notions that were supposed to take dozens of years to come to terms with were approaching at the speed of light. Bereavement. Loss of friends. Death itself. Everything was happening too fast. Deep in her fragile heart Miho knew that this death wasn't going to be the last, the worst part was that she could see no way out of this dilemma. She wiped her eyes and examined the black stain on her arm. She had been crying uncontrollably since Mitsuru returned and told her Ichiro was dead. She couldn't look down at his body any longer, it hadn't been altered to smile by some expensive undertaker, it; he, just lay still, mouth hung open, eyes shut, gaping hole on the right side of his chest. He'd been washed but the wound itself was still visible. Miho slowly got to her feet and picked up the shovel they'd found inside one of the houses. She carefully buried him. While doing so Miho never once looked down, seeing Ichiro being slowly engulfed in earth would have been the final nail in her coffin as well as his. She knew what she would begin to contemplate, the thoughts of it polluted her mind but she blocked them out. There were endless inescapable truths that crawled through her mind like so many black insects. There was the knowledge that there was now a 16 out of 17 chance that she would die, there was the knowledge that everyone else she knew faced that same terrifying statistic and there was the fact that sliced through to the core of her soul, the fact that even if somehow she won, she would be dead inside, there was no way out. What a fucking mess.

She felt the tears well up behind her eyes again and with a suppressed wail she once again broke down, dropping the shovel at her feet. The tears left cold streaks down her face but it felt somehow relieving to cry, holding something like that back hurt more than real tears did. Miho was anything but an introvert, she normally needed to have someone around in moments of turmoil but this one put her in a situation where she wanted to be alone, this is why where Noboru was buried by Mitsuru close to the settlement Miho had walked almost half a mile to bury Ichiro (Mitsuru had helped carry him before she told him to leave). She could still feel remnants of her original reaction, it had felt as if the breath was being ripped out of her body, she had starting convincing herself she would wake up any second, in all honesty part of her was still holding on to a hope that it all was some horrific nightmare, it was not.

"Miho."

No. She thought. It can't be, the voice that had just emanated from behind her was Ichiro's. She desperately wanted to turn around but something entered her mind, the Greek myth of Orpheus. In this story his wife had been killed, Orpheus went to the underworld to get her by softening Hades with his music, he agreed to let her go on the condition that as they walked back he would stay in front and not look back at her. Orpheus asked her to give him a sign she was there as they walked but there was none so he turned back and she was taken back to the underworld. If Ichiro was speaking to her, in her desperation not to lose him a second time, she simply said this:

"Keep talking; just keep talking so I know you're really there."

"Alright." The voice mused after a long pause "If it keeps you calm, I wouldn't want to do this if you were panicking too much."

Wait what? That didn't sound like Ichiro at all, it was still sounding like his voice but not his tone or register just the voice. Miho wheeled around. It wasn't Ichiro, it was Seta. She should have guessed. Seta had a voice that was virtually identical to Ichiro's. The moment she saw him she remembered that he had a slow, methodical way of speaking when he did speak, which wasn't very often. She also remembered that though he'd never seemed as bad as the others, Seta ran with a group of 4 other perverted, unpleasant boys. This is the train of thought that lead her back to the second thing he'd said: 'wouldn't want to do this'. Her nerves felt like they had shattered, it was around then that he grabbed her.

**Masako**

It sounded like a plane crashing to the ground. Even the sound of twisted scrap metal dispersing in the aftermath of the bang could be heard. Masako realised she was standing in the centre of an exploded house. There was a perfect circle of rubble surrounding her. Masako's mind felt like a blank page, she remembered nothing. Suddenly she smelt the fresh cut green grass and felt herself sitting on the school bleachers. She looked left to see Atsuko smiling at her. Down on the bench Yoshi looked up at her and smiled, waving. Satoshi moved his bat in slow, small circles down at the plate before Shinji powered the ball his way. Satoshi knocked it about 12 feet past third base, it rolled another 3. Tetsuya ran to get it but fell down half way, subject to much laughter. Kazuo ran past, jumping over him and grabbed the ball; he threw it to Kyo at the home plate. Seeing his advantage, Kyo bent down at a snail's pace to tap him out, making Satoshi think he was still in with a chance.

"I can make it!" Satoshi croaked jokingly

Kyo tapped him out and he leaped head first into the plate. On the bench Yuji exploded into laughter, followed by everyone else. Satoshi, shamed, just stayed lying on the ground, nose buried in the sand. The pleasant sound of a soda can being opened drew Masako's attention to Miho sitting on her right who was offering her some Diet Coke. It tasted delicious and was cool and refreshing on the hot afternoon. Something odd happened, the flavour suddenly had a metal-like quality to it, the texture became thicker, stringy almost. She felt sick and spat into her hands, it was blood. The crashing sound again, this time she was standing on a hill with a black steel gun next to her. She looked down. Blood was slowly rising around her ankles. Frantically she tried to run, her feet felt heavy, too heavy to move. Suddenly they just left the ground and Masako felt her back against a metal chair.

The air suddenly felt more humid, she could hear rubber shoes squeaking against a wooden floor. She was at a basketball game now. This time she felt Yoshi's hand holding hers and turned to see him sitting next to her. His eyes were fixed on the game. Masako instead looked into the crowd on the other side. Most of them were second years from other classes except for that crowd of plastic girls, they were all standing at the back leaning against a wall. Most girls and some of the guys despised them, these were the only people to see them in true light for the arrogant bitches they were. Masako didn't feel that strongly but she still somewhat disliked them. She noticed something, most of them were talking to each other but Sakura who would normally be wearing a huge smile or laughing was only half smiling, she was also one hundred percent fixated on the game. Her eyes were darting back and forth. Masako realised that they were following someone but before she could read further into this Sakura got dragged out of the back door by the others. The game seemed to be running at a draw, the home team were on the offensive but they had just given a penalty away. Satoshi, Kazuo, Shinji and Yuji were all blocking the other team while Sho was talking to the referee, Masako could hear frustration in his voice but not what he was saying. Sho walked defiantly back into playing position as the ball went out, Yuji leapt into the air and intercepted the pass before careering towards the basket. Kazuo ran at his left side while the other two tried to keep the other team in check. Yuji's feet left the ground as he shot the ball with a fluid motion from his left wrist. One of the other team members jumped up to block. The air cracked open with a thunderous sound. The blocker screamed and hit the ground as what must have been a litre of blood gushed from an open wound in his chest. He lay sprawled on the ground, dead. No-one reacted to this. Masako turned to see the smoking 12-gauge shotgun the Shinji was grasping in his hands. Everyone turned to look at Masako, she felt her heart pounding.

Crash. The school entrance this time. Masako moved to walk forward, she felt her feet leave the ground and she began to float across the path. Masako then realised she had no control over where she was going. The school quad was totally empty; Masako was so used to seeing it filled with people that seeing it completely deserted made it feel alien to her. This bizarre guided tour led Masako towards the English block. Suddenly as she rounded a corner Masako saw Miho standing in front of her. Miho was straight faced, staring directly forward. Masako called after her but Miho simply turned back and walked into one of the English rooms. Masako was turned to follow her. When she got inside the room was emptied out and stripped bare. Standing in the middle was not Miho, but Atsuko. She was smiling softly with her hands around her waist and her head turned at a very slight angle. She was wearing her uniform with the shirt untucked.

"It's pretty cold in here Masako" She mused. "I can't seem to find the air conditioning; could you help me look for it?"

Something was a little odd about the way she was speaking; her tone of voice was very unusual. Her voice was also echoing and sounded very far away. She raised her hand and let it rest over her stomach. Momentarily she flickered, like a bad TV signal.

"Actually, I think it's already on." She continued. "But I feel pretty damn cold. I don't know why, I'd better find a way to keep warm."

Atsuko grinned. Something definitely wasn't right. Masako had never seen Atsuko act this way. She also never, ever grinned like that; she'd smile, but never widely. The grin shrank by a few molars, and then she closed her lips and looked down at her hand. It was stained red with blood. She moved it down a few inches. There was a blackened wound beneath her shirt. Masako, shocked, looked back up at Atsuko's face. It was white as a sheet. She was still smiling. She fell back and disappeared through the floor. Before Masako could really react she felt herself being yanked back at great speed. She wheeled around and saw that she was in the maths department. The desks were out in this room. Satoshi, Mitsuru and Hanako were all sat down; Masako could only see the back of them.

"Only subtracting from here on in Masako" Satoshi snarled.

"Need to trim down the numbers Masako" Mitsuru added

"One in forty's not going to cut it Masako" Growled Hanako

The white board at the front of the room had all the names of Class C written on it. Of its own accord, the white board began crossing out names. Masako realised that her name was the one at the bottom. It reached Satoshi's name and he disappeared, went out like a candle. Mitsuru and Hanako closely followed. Masako felt the room darkening, her name was crossed out and everything turned black. Lights began to turn on in strips. A long hallway was illuminated before her. Kazuo, Ichiro, Tetsuya, Noboru and Kyo were all walking down it away from her. She tried to follow after them but as she moved to grab Tetsuya's shoulder he slipped away as the ground disappeared from under him. They all fell into an endless pit and Masako got dragged back out of the long corridor.

She found herself in the middle of the chemistry room. At first glance the room was empty but then she realised that someone was standing behind the glass safety sheet. It was Yoshi. Masako strained herself trying to reach him, trying to break the hold that had been dragging her everywhere and which now cemented her to this spot in the heart of the room. Yoshi looked different however. His hair was draped almost entirely over his face in thick, moist strands and his eyes were a deep red. As Masako moved closer Yoshi struck the glass and gnashed like an animal. He was moving strangely as if his world was moving faster than hers, his motions were interspersed between moments of almost cyber stillness, like a spider. He contorted back and forth clawing at the glass violently. Masako, terrified, moved back. Smoke suddenly enveloped Yoshi and began filling the class room and turning it pitch black.

Masako saw nothing. She heard the glass shatter. She looked around desperately, willing the room to illuminate. She could hear Yoshi's heavy breath. He was seeking her out like a wild animal. It came closer. Masako struggled but she couldn't move. Closer still. The darkness was like liquid drowning her in fear. Masako heard the breath inches from her face. Then the crashing sound came again.

Masako was in another classroom now. Sitting at her desk looking up at the ceiling. She looked back down, her friends were with her. They were all dead. At the front Satoshi's chair had fallen back and he had a cut through his neck. Hanako was on one side of him with a knife in her chest while Atsuko was on the other, bleeding from an unseen source. On the next row Tetsuya was slumped over his desk, Masako couldn't see where he was hurt but blood was dripping onto the floor around him. Ichiro's head hung back and there was a hole in the back of his chair going right through his stomach. Miho had a bullet wound in the back of her head. One row further back Mitsuru was bent back with his left hand hung loose and bloody on the ground. Next to him on the left side Kyo was looking right at Masako, open mouthed, his neck had been twisted all the way around, she could see through his skin where the spine had been broken. On the other side of Mitsuru was Kazuo, he was lying half way off his desk with blood running from a wound in his chest down across his neck and over his face. Masako looked at the desk on her right, Noboru. One of his eyes had been ripped out. Sickened Masako looked left, then she realised who remained. Yoshi sat there, motionless, charred and burned with his eyes staring wide up at the roof. The crashing sound resonated and the classroom shook. The roof began to crack and Masako saw the beams of wood falling toward her.

Crash. Masako woke up.

**Atsuko**

"Masako!" Atsuko pleaded "What's wrong!"

Masako was steeped in ice cold sweat and shaking violently. Atsuko had to keep a tight grip on her pulsing wrist to try and calm her down. Her pupils were incredibly retracted as if the sun were mere inches from her face. Masako refused to respond, she was mired in a dangerous panic attack. On TV someone in this situation just ended up getting slapped across the face to knock some sense back into them but Atsuko was painfully aware that something like that would never work. A panic attack was just mass adrenaline moving through the heart at high speed, it could be likened to a computer system overloading to the point where it almost crashes but doesn't. Atsuko took her hand off Masako and allowed her to recompose in her own time. Frankly it shocked Atsuko that it was Masako who had a panic attack first, under such intense stress as they all were. Atsuko couldn't shake her final meeting with Noboru before he was buried. Mitsuru had taken the unfavourable task of cleaning the bodies but even with most of the blood wiped off and the stained clothes changed into fresh ones, the massive gash in Noboru's neck and his head that hung loose like a dead tulip. His fixed expression of pure shock seemed like it was burned into Atsuko's retina. After Masako had calmed down Atsuko left her with Hanako and Mitsuru and went to his grave again.

Mitsuru had insisted that she take some level of protection with her if she went out alone so she took the crossbow. Noboru's grave was a crudely made but well meaning wooden cross with comments by all present at the time about him carved into the horizontal beam. They read as follows:

"You always meant well and you were always a good friend to me. We will all miss you." Mitsuru

"We'll see each other again" Hanako

"I may have complained from time to time, but I swear I always cared, I'm so sorry." Miho

"I promise I'll keep you in my memory." Masako

"Don't forget me, Noboru and I won't forget you." Atsuko

Atsuko sat, cross legged reading these little messages over and over again. They were incomplete of course, still a few more to be noted down. It was Atsuko's idea to write them in the first place, it was a beautiful gesture given their squalid situation. Atsuko's message had been a particularly meaningful one, for a time in middle school it had looked like Atsuko would end up being transferred somewhere else, for the first couple of months in the freshmen year she did indeed attend another school, but she moved straight back for a number of reasons. Instead of writing in a book she had gotten her friends to write on her orange backpack knowing full well she'd never get rid of it. Noboru's message was "Don't forget Noboru and Noboru won't forget you". He wasn't the brightest person in the world so for him it was sweet, it had stuck in her mind ever since. Noboru had been a nice boy, a little slow witted and whiny at times, but he always meant well, not many other people can say that. Atsuko began to feel uncomfortable, the slow, tranquil atmosphere felt almost ghostly. The fact that she was alone began to take hold. Reassuringly she heard footsteps approaching behind her, crunching against the winter snow. Wait, there was no snow, it was summer. Then why did it feel so cold? Atsuko could feel the uncomfortable pricking of her skin like tiny needles underneath it trying to poke through. The feet were still crunching against snow that wasn't there. Atsuko was suddenly petrified but so compelled to turn around that it felt like her mind was going to short circuit. Eventually one overwhelmed the other and Atsuko's neck snapped round. The pastel white face and melted make up stared right back. The ghost again. Her white hair flowed through non-existent wind. Her breath echoed. Suddenly her face began to change shape, first slowly, then quickly as if it where obscured by irregular glass. It morphed back into focus. Satoshi. His face was reddened by blood and his eyes not but white. He exhaled and jet black smog drifted from his mouth, enveloping his entire head. The smoke slowly drifted and convulsed around Satoshi's head before being sucked back to once again reveal the ghost. She, in her distant voice, uttered one word.

"Widow"

With that the ghostly doppelganger was gone. Atsuko fell back and supported herself with the palms of her hands. The ghost had unlocked a part of her mind she had been trying to ignore. Satoshi was out there on his own, every part of Atsuko had tried to ignore the idea that his life was in danger but now it was breathing black, foreboding soot in her face. She was helpless to do what she did next. Rising to her feet, she walked out into the trees. No notions of rationality were holding her back; she had to save Satoshi, no matter what the cost.

**Hanako**

Something didn't feel quite right, it was now about 6:00 AM on the 5th day, Atsuko had left to go to Noboru's grave about 7 hours ago, both Hanako and Mitsuru had since fallen asleep but now they had been awake for a good 2 hours, Miho was also nowhere to been seen since she left yesterday at about 10pm with their first torch, Atsuko had the second (there were plenty more but those two had to be low on battery power by now). Tetsuya had been absent for even longer, in light of Ichiro and Noboru's deaths the group was breaking at the seams.

Three bangs on the door. Mitsuru rose up to open it but then reared back in horror. A silver spear tip was pointed at his neck. As he walked back, Seta walked in. Hanako froze, fixed in place. Seta spoke slowly and clearly.

"Here is what I want you to do, I have Miho held in a house opposite this one, she is unhurt, leave all of your supplies and weapons in front of the door then knock exactly four times in rapid succession, I will return her to you, then I want you to leave this place."

Still pointing the spear tip at Mitsuru, Seta left the room and shut the door behind him. Hanako allowed breath to escape from her body and fell back. Her hair draped across the floor. Mitsuru left the room and came back with the daypacks and weapons piled in his arms.

"Wait." Hanako called after him. "You're just going to do it?"

"Yes." Mitsuru replied with steel indignation.

Hanako sprawled out of her sitting position and got to her feet, following after him. It was a cool, crisp morning; condensation covered all of the windows. Mitsuru walked up to their 'neighbour's' doorway and gingerly dropped the pile of supplies and weaponry on the doormat. Hanako noticed that Mitsuru had not included the sword, he had developed an attatchment to it, the crossbow was also missing as Atsuko had taken it to the graveside in the name of self defence. He knocked as commanded and Seta opened the door. Leaning by his left hand against the edge of it, he scanned the pile with his eyes and walked away briefly. He returned with Miho who was bound by the hands and mouth, he gently led her forward then he scooped up the supplies and dropped them inside before sliding the door shut. His silhouette disappeared into the house. Mitsuru was quick to untie Miho who collapsed onto the floor coughing and sort of half crying half hyperventilating. Hanako turned to Mitsuru.

"What do we do now?"

Mitsuru's face darkened. "We find the others, Then we bring this fucking game down."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Cutting of Bonds

**Kazuo**

Yoshi and Kazuo arrived at a secluded house in a forest clearing at about 5:00 PM on the fourth day, the deaths of Ichiro and Noboru hadn't happened at this point. At the point at which they did die him and Yoshi were up talking.

"So everyone is back at a main settlement?" Kazuo questioned.

"Yeah, unless they relocated, which is unlikely."

"That seems a little – stupid frankly. Hotspot for people to head towards and danger zones."

"We didn't get a single DZ tag in our area as long as we were there, honest, except for one a few blocks east of us."

"What about my other point?"

"Oh that's true, we got our fair slice of action, when we arrived Keitaro was on top of the bell tower with a sniper rifle, I think he'd already taken 2 or 3 people down, me and Satoshi got rid of him. All the other people who went there turned up before we arrived, 'cept Hiroshi."

"Well then, I think we've both learned something about what happens when we stay put, keeping on the move might be a better plan."

"I suppose you have me there, when we_"

Outside they heard something all too familiar, a gunshot; then a scream. Kazuo and Yoshi exchanged looks, then another shot sounded, seconds later the window near them shattered. They both stayed down and, in light of experience were able to think logically. Yoshi walked back and began pushing a book case in front of the window. Kazuo ran down into the basement were he thought he'd seen something significant. He ran through the grey bricked room to a dusty metal chest, as he opened it spiders scattered out into the shadows, there was a small pile of coal and on top of that two items, a glock pistol and a scythe. However unusual it was to find 2 spare weapons in one place Kazuo wasn't going to complain. Keeping low, Kazuo ran upstairs, Yoshi had set about blocking all of the openings and followed him.

"What were you doing down there?" He called.

"This." Kazuo said after throwing the pistol to him.

When they got upstairs they both crouched by front windows. Nothing happened for a long time, it remained eerily quiet. It was a little past 9pm when Yoshi took a peak out of the window. He immediately dropped to the floor and held his hands over his head. A torrent of gunshots ripped through the window as glass shards shot in every direction. Kazuo ducked down as well.

"WHO WAS IT?" He yelled as the gunfire continued

"HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW? HE'S TOO FAR AWAY TO TELL! HOW'S HE SHOOTING LIKE THAT? LAST TIME IT WAS ONE GODDAMN SHOT!'

"HE MUST HAVE AN AUTO-RIFLE, WE NEED TO WAIT TILL HE RUNS OUT OF AMMO!"

They lay pressed against the ground as gunfire hailed through the window. On the opposite wall bullet holes tore into the wall as the room filled with thick, hot dust. The shooting stopped abruptly and Yoshi immediately took aim out of the window. He didn't fire and carried a perplexed look. He turned back to Kazuo.

"He's not th_"

Crack! A bullet tore into Yoshi's arm and knocked him onto the floor, breathing heavily with the exquisite pain he must have been feeling. He rasped and hit a high wheezing pitch with every breath trying to block out the agony. Kazuo assumed that the shooter had to change his setting to single shot from burst and then just waited, clever. He crawled across the wood boarded floor to Yoshi and looked at the wound. It wasn't bad; the bullet had apparently hit the wall behind him but taken a chunk of flesh out of the back of Yoshi's right bicep. Kazuo tore a bit of shirt off with his teeth and tightly wrapped it around the wound, it was all he could do at this stage. The rapid gunfire began raining in again, closer this time, Kazuo fired a shot with the pistol off out of the window into the air (he couldn't aim down from where he was sitting). The pistol pulled his arm up as if it wanted to escape from his grip but he held it firmly. The firing stopped. Kazuo stayed down, he knew the shooter still had him pinned but couldn't hit him, it was a stake out now.

Kazuo woke up at about 4am, he and Yoshi had apparently both nodded off. The shooter who although he was tactically clever, according to a shot he volleyed off when Kazuo held a picture frame up, was dumb enough to have stayed in the same position all night. However, about an hour later they heard footsteps moving up to the front door, then banging. The next thing they heard was a gun cocking, then a muffled voice, male, then a second, female. Kazuo snuck downstairs with Yoshi close in tow. He looked around the basement stairs to see the back of Tenjin Ishimi's head; he had an M16 Carbine Automatic Rifle with optics in his hand (Kazuo needed to lay off the action movies). He was pointing it into the basement. Kazuo acted fast, he took aim with the pistol and fired. A loud clang was followed by a blinding spark as the gun's chamber was heavily dented before it violently tore out of Tenjin's grasp and smacked hard against the stairway banister. It bounced clacking against the ground. Tenjin turned to see the pistol pointed at him square between the eyes. He quickly ducked out of the way and rolled behind the basement wall. Kazuo slowly edged down the stairs. He slid around the corner with the gun's nozzle ahead of him, no-body there. How? Wait. He turned 180 degrees and saw Tenjin running at him wielding a rapier sword. Kazuo reared back in time to have the gun knocked from his grasp. Tenjin pointed the deadly sharp blade at Kazuo's neck. He smiled. Suddenly Yoshi's left fist powered into Tenjin's face and he fell to the ground, possibly unconscious. Astonished, Kazuo turned to Yoshi.

"Man that was cool, thanks dude."

"Anytime."

They both looked to the back of the basement, sat sprawled in a corner, nursing a blood covered leg wound was Wakaba. She was a nice enough girl, very athletic, apparently not enough to dodge Tenjin's scope. There was an AK-47 rifle resting by her feet. Yoshi and Kazuo both leaned over to make sure she was ok. When asked, a teary eyed Wakaba looked up at them and nodded with a slight high pitched hum. Kazuo turned to Yoshi.

"I think we could hang around here for a little while." He mused

"Yeah, agreed, I need to treat this damn dent in my arm properly." Yoshi replied

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRR!"

Tenjin ran screaming at them wielding his sword like a maniac. Kazuo pulled the scythe from his belt and felt it clang against Tenjin's rapier.

"Engarde you dipshit! I will destroy you!"

Tenjin was clearly in a very strange mindset. Kazuo moved back uncomfortably as Tenjin swung madly at him; he didn't quite know how to react to what was happening. Tenjin was in no stead to do any damage, he was too scatterbrained but on the other hand Kazuo would eventually back into a wall at this rate. Tenjin was dodging about quite fast, Kazuo had forgotten he was on the basketball team; he was normally on the bench. The blade flew towards Kazuo every which way but oddly it wasn't hard to block, Tenjin lacked precision. Kazuo risked a speedy kick and threw his foot out. It hit Tenjin's chest dead on and he flew back onto the ground wheezing. Kazuo took a deep breath and went back to once again check that Wakaba was alright, he kicked Tenjin's blade out of the way as he went and threw the short, impractical scythe (or sickle, whatever it was) into the corner.

"How long have you been down here?" Kazuo asked

"Urm, since about 2am last night." She replied.

Kazuo carefully picked up her gun and examined it closely, it was loaded, but in spite of being one of the best weapons in the game it hadn't been fired yet. Kazuo supposed that was a good thing, in a way. Suddenly yet another insane cry erupted, instinctively Kazuo turned and fired. The shots loudly rattled their way into Tenjin's body as he shook violently with the deep searing pain. Blood burst out of every hole the bullets tore before Kazuo stopped firing and Tenjin fell back already dead. Shocked, Kazuo dashed over and examined the blood stained body. It was contorted and the mouth hung open, while Yoshi was a little more adjusted to death this was only the third corpse Kazuo had seen so far, the only dead body he'd seen that he hadn't killed was a girl he cared about, it took a heavy toll. Stricken Kazuo looked back at Yoshi who merely wore a face of sympathy and looked back at the ground. Kazuo hadn't dealt with his murder of Takahashi properly because he believed it was just, this however was boy who'd clearly lost his mind to this game. Kazuo breathed deeply and closed Tenjin's eyes with his fingertips. Moment over, time to move on to the next hellish thing.

**Tetsuya**

Aching ankles, pulsing blood vessels, blurred vision. Tetsuya had run in circles for about 3 hours before he realised, by then he was in some considerable pain. He sat, cross legged on a log and began to examine his situation. He was alone, lost, had no bag, no weapon and no way of telling whether he was in a danger zone or not until his collar started beeping. Damn. He was in a difficult state of affairs. In hindsight running off so rashly wasn't the best idea in the world; Tetsuya could have formulated some reason for why the girl was now dead. Better yet he could have just owned up to what he did, they would have almost definitely understood. Damn. Why didn't he think of all this earlier? It was this game; it did things to people's heads, Keitaro, while a little weird had always seemed reasonable, look at him now!

Thinking about him spurred Tetsuya to wonder exactly how alone he actually was. It was getting light. The tree's shadows snaked across the ground and slithered up Tetsuya's body slowly. The low moving light made Tetsuya aware that should someone be following him as he thought, he'd be relatively easy to see. Tetsuya got up and starting walking through the forest. He continued hearing noises behind him. Just paranoia he thought. Just paranoia. Just... Fuck it. Run. His legs pelted across the earthy ground, never looking back. He had no idea if there was even someone behind him, he didn't seem to even comprehend that thought. Adrenaline was screaming into his brain at one thousand miles per hour, all was irrelevant.

Suddenly Tetsuya's ankle was yanked back; he felt his weight go out of balance as he was flung forwards. Instinctively and uncontrollably his arms moved in front of him to break the fall. But his weight was making his left shoulder tip so his left hand hit the ground first, briefly it met the ground softly. Then all of Tetsuya's weight came crashing down on top of it. Tetsuya cried out in agony as he felt his bones shift unnaturally before he was overwhelmed with blinding pain. His shoulder was dislocated. Screaming and heavy breathing amalgamated into a stricken moan as Tetsuya lay on his back with his left arm contorted unnaturally, resting on his chest. He brought his right hand round to feel the shoulder joint, there was no bone there, just stretched skin. He felt a little further down and there was his joint. Sickened and hyperventilating Tetsuya moved his right hand over his mouth. Then he rolled over onto his front to numb the pain. He heard footsteps, all too aware of his helplessness. He felt the pain of his arm and felt himself slipping away. He was going to black out and he knew it. The feet came into view and Tetsuya glanced up. Satoshi. Thank god. Satoshi, his best friend. Tetsuya exhaled, everything was going to be okay, he smiled widely, then everything went pitch black.

**Satoshi**

"A very good morning young fighters. I'm feeling much better this morning if it at all matters to you. Ah who am I kidding I know you love hearing me talk! Anyway, pretty interesting haul this time. Who've we got? Well let's have a look see. Well Ichiro Tamaki went down around 10 past 8 last night, Noboru Nara followed closely by the same murderer. The murderer herself, Naoko Kiamichi got killed a little while later. That was all for yesterday evening but this morning at about 5 Tenjin Ishimi got pumped full of machine gun bullets after putting up a rather amusing fight against 2 of our personal favourite killers. Keep up the good work guys."

Satoshi fell on the floor and screamed. Noboru and Ichiro? It couldn't be, by that shy girl with long hair? It was less than a day ago he'd been talking to them, a memory of talking Noboru out of breaking down sparked back into Satoshi's mind. Positive memories of the bus morphed into bad ones in floods of blood stained grief. Satoshi was paralyzed, and then something happened. Something that hadn't happened in a very long time. Satoshi felt it welling up within him. Then it occurred. Satoshi began to cry. It was like a sudden outburst of energy, or the exorcism of a demon. Satoshi fell to the ground and clapped his hand over mouth to suppress a loud scream. He felt the tepid tears streak slowly across the knuckles of his hand as he breathed profusely. This breathing morphed into a kind of wailing sound as he rolled over on to his hands and knees. The tears impacted and spread dark marks across the ground beneath him as he was reduced to little more than a child. All attempts at composure were made useless. The only incentive that spurred Satoshi to move was the realisation at how vulnerable he was. So he walked.

He dragged his feet and kept his head down like some humbled servant or prisoner. Anyone would be lead to assume he was accepting the blame for these deaths. Though he'd never admit it, even to himself, this was true. He blamed himself for everything, Yoshi's disappearance wasn't as severe, at least that could be rectified but now he'd been backed into a corner. The people he'd left were dying, the people he was looking for could be dying and he could die. Yet he continued to define himself as their solemn protector even though he was aware of the arrogance designated by this. His ears interrupted his thoughts, picking up the sound of a tree branches moving, or rather being moved through. This sound was followed by that of something heavy hitting the ground. Somehow Satoshi could tell it was a person, something in his mind maintained that it had to be. Unthinking, he headed directly for the sound which had been off to his left deeper into the wooded area. Behind him now the forest was more open and spacious whether as he was now pushing his way into the thicker, deeper woodland. There was a time when Satoshi and his family would regularly go on holiday trips to Lake Towada in the Akita Prefecture. Towada was a caldera lake surrounded by woodland that could be hiked through. Every now and again the footpath would thin out or even disappear. By this experience Satoshi had become quite adept at moving through thick sections of woodland. The last shrub brushed out of Satoshi's eye line. He was able to see the dark shape of someone lying on the ground as he approached and has also heard a low pitched moan. As he moved into clear view he recognized who it was. Tetsuya lay before him cradling what appeared to be a dislocated arm; the joint was jutting out unnaturally in such a way that it made Satoshi feel physically sick. He suppressed this sensation and looked down at Tetsuya who smiled at him before losing consciousness.

Satoshi realised that Tetsuya must have been in a lot of pain, he could ask him why he had left the group later but getting him to somewhere safe was now the highest priority. Footsteps. Satoshi heard them but he didn't look up at first so he just saw two feet standing at Tetsuya's side in regulation black school shoes with a slight coating of mud around the rim of the soles. It could've been anyone. The next sound Satoshi heard was a painfully familiar one. A gun being cocked. He looked up to see the repulsive smirk of Keitaro Nakata and a silenced, black pistol being pointed towards him. Satoshi looked at it with such focus he thought he could almost see the bullet in the chamber, one click and he'd be dead. Keitaro, unusually, said nothing. He just smiled a wide, toothy grin with his inarguably horrible face. It was greasy, acne ridden; he had a large dented nose, an overbite and hair combed so it parted at the leftmost and smoothed over to the right. He took two steps back and closed his lips over his teeth, lowering the gun. Satoshi felt a slight pang of relief but then he realised where the gun was now pointed. One split second later Satoshi woke up out of the loud, screaming blur. He looked down at his chest; his white shirt was draped in viscous blood which was so dark it was almost black. He followed its line down, across his legs, shoes and onto the ground where it met with its source. The pistol was still lightly shaking and smoke emanated from it. Tetsuya lay there, perfectly circular hole pierced in his skull. His hair was stained moist red. There was absolutely no doubt. Tetsuya was dead.

Satoshi could feel his very soul being poisoned with grief, horror and fury. It tried to force its way out as he coughed and breathed under massive emotional pressure. When he glanced back up Keitaro was grinning again and he had his gun held at Satoshi's head. There were flecks of blood streaked across Keitaro's face and seemingly he didn't care. This was no human being, this was a monster, if memory served humans had a pretty constant historical background in relation to monsters. Killing them. No longer concerned with his own mortality Satoshi slapped the gun to one side and threw himself at his adversary. The hatred Keitaro felt for Satoshi had been met and outstripped with the act of murder. Satoshi drove his fist into Keitaro's face so hard it felt like knuckle against soft clay. Keitaro shrieked and fell to the floor before recoiling back like a cowardly dog. His eyes then focused on something behind Satoshi. Turning around, Satoshi saw someone he hadn't seen in 5 days though it felt like 5 years. Kazuo. He had an AK-47 automatic rifle in his hands and it was pointed at Keitaro. Tears were streaming down his face. If Satoshi had the gun he would have ripped the fucker in two but Kazuo didn't fire, he just stood there with shaky but somehow resolute composure. He looked different, aesthetically he looked exactly the same, mid height, skinny, long thin face with an angular jaw line, but his eyes had a weary depth as if he'd seen the worst side to this game, truth be told he had, and more. His mouth opened to speak, his voice sounded grief stricken but clear.

"Stand up Keitaro." He said robotically

"Wh...What?"

"STAND THE FUCK UP!" He barked, a force to be reckoned with given he was holding a much bigger and considerably scarier gun.

Keitaro complied and stood uneasily to his feet, taking a moment to regain his balance enough to slowly back away. Kazuo took a long, sighing breath, then once again prepared to talk.

"Go now, stay away. If I ever see your face on this island again, I'll kill you, with my bare hands I will tear you apart." He said, his authoritarian register wavering in the wake of an onset of tears. "You have no right left to live in my eyes, I see you as nothing more than a shrivelled, cowardly worm so go now before I get too tempted to step on you, you worthless piece of shit!" Kazuo continued, now very noticeably crying and making no attempt to hold it back.

Keitaro started to turn but he briefly hesitated, prompting Kazuo to fire a line of bullets into the ground at his feet sounding thunderous steel applause to death itself.

"GO NOW!" He shrieked.

Needing no further incentive Keitaro turned his back and ran. Kazuo waited until Keitaro was out of view then turned to Satoshi. Wiping his tears away he attempted a sympathetic smile with his bloodshot eyes and ever-so-slightly quivering lips. Satoshi responded in kind and without any words having to be said he followed Kazuo. It was a long walk. They both padded across the earth and leaves very slowly, again keeping their heads down in mourning silence for the sake of the friends they had lost. Tetsuya... Satoshi's mind repeatedly murmured his name, embossed with images of him smiling, laughing, and joking. It always seemed clichéd in the movies, scenes with post mortem montages backed by humbled, grief ridden piano music. Now it was the hardest image in the world to stomach. The only consolation was that Tetsuya smiled and thought himself safe before he drifted into sleep, he neither felt nor became aware of his fatal wound. Eventually in yet another entirely new sounding tone, this time a low, informative one, Kazuo began to speak.

"I'm with Yoshi." He stated. "We're walled up in a house at the edge of the forest, we'll be there in about ten minutes. Yoshi's hurt, shot in the arm, I've treated the wound, it's not infected so far as I can tell, Wakaba is also with us."

Satoshi simply grunted in response to this. He understood everything he heard but he wanted the conversation to end. He needed time to think. He felt the rhythm of the weight shifting from right leg to left leg and watched his hair wave back and forth over his eyes. It was almost exactly ten minutes when once again Kazuo's voice pierced the uncomfortable air.

"We're here."

Satoshi looked up to see a western styled red brick house. The first thing he noticed was the walls riddled with bullet dents and the smashed windows but he didn't bother to question the cause nor did he see any logic to asking. At this stage it went without saying. Kazuo held the oak front door open and Satoshi shuffled in. He felt somewhat less constricted when he heard Yoshi's friendly sounding voice indicating that he was in the living room but under the circumstances the feeling didn't count for much. Kazuo went in first and threw his gun on the floor. Yoshi was sat in a tall arm chair, he leant forward and winced with the pain coming from his bandaged arm. Wakaba was sprawled over a long couch on the opposite side of the room. She looked exhausted more than anything else. It was clear that Yoshi upon hearing the morning announcement had also been crying, there was a bin filled with used tissues next to him. Satoshi grimaced; he was going to have to find some more tissues now. Yoshi took a moment before addressing Kazuo.

"What happened? We heard the shooting from here." He questioned.

"When I found Satoshi, Keitaro was there as well."

Satoshi had forgotten in the midst of it all that not only had he been looking for Yoshi, Yoshi was totally unaware of this. Said issue had not been raised and had more or less been glazed over now.

"Shit." Yoshi cursed. "And then what?"

"He... Tetsuya was there as well but he was unconscious... just before I got there I heard a gunshot being fired and..."

"No, please don't say he_"

"He did. Yoshi Tetsuya's dead." Kazuo sobbed. "He got shot while he was down, right in the fucking head."

Yoshi coughed loudly then began to sob in the form of laboured, choking breaths that almost sounded like laughter in a cruel emotional irony. Wakaba, who'd said nothing until now, rolled over slightly, wide eyed and gasped.

"No..." She squeaked. "Not Tetsuya..."

"Nothing can be done about it now." Kazuo muttered pessimistically.

"Why, why is it the nice ones that die?" Wakaba observed, prompting Satoshi to speak for the first time in a while.

"Because the nice ones don't get sucked in by this bullshit!" He cried, feeling emotion tear its way out in vocal form. "Tetsuya never killed anybody! Anybody! Now a weasel like Keitaro kills him? It's not fair! It's not – right..." Satoshi sank onto a nearby seat and buried his head in his hands. "No more killing." His muffled voice made a resolute statement but not a viable one. On this island, tragedy was ruler and morality was irrelevant. Satoshi was treading water in a pool of blood that was getting ever deeper. He just wanted to know how long he could hold out before he drowned.

The forest was far from quiet, during the night all kinds of sounds could be heard outside the house, but still Satoshi attempted to get some sleep. His dreams were merciless. Yet more images of his friends plagued his subconscious mind and twisted his soul to the point at which it would surely snap. He woke up at about 2 minutes to 7. The entire group were sleeping in the basement which had been locked and concealed in the name of secrecy. Satoshi spread his hands across the bricked wall and put his weight against it. The voice of the announcer interrupted the morning calm.

"Morning people, we appear to have a serious problem. Another slow day yesterday wasn't it? Kudos to the people who took down Tenjin Ishimi and Tetsuya Kurume, however 2 deaths in one day is dismal and as a result we have a little surprise for you little fuck faces, as of 7 o' clock, every single standing building on the island is now a danger zone. Think of it as an incentive, good luck, now get killing."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Day Number Six

**Kazuo**

"Shit!" Kazuo screeched.

He could feel his collar beeping. Satoshi had woken him and Yoshi up to some shocking revelations, number one: Wakaba was gone. Number two: they were in a danger zone. Number three: they were locked in. That was right; it would appear that upon leaving earlier Wakaba had barred the only door. Now they were trapped like rats, waiting to hear that final beeping death sentence before the boom. Kazuo felt like the collar around his neck was getting smaller, choking him. He looked around frantically at the walls suddenly seeming oh so close. 7:01, four minutes remaining. Satoshi signalled them to come over to the far wall. Kazuo released that without a window it would have been pitch black in there, so there must have been another way out! Fortunately Satoshi had come to exactly the same conclusion; the small window at the top was easy to miss. Unfortunately it was also very difficult to access. It was a deep basement therefore the room's floor was a good ten feet below ground level. There was also no furniture down there save for a metal box nailed to the wall. Kazuo ran over and checked it to see if it could be taken off the wall, not possible. 7:02, three minutes remaining. Satoshi spoke from the other side of the room.

"Yoshi, let's see if I can lift you up to the window," He said resolutely

"Yeah." He replied.

Satoshi interlocked his fingers and Yoshi stepped on his hands. Satoshi strained as he pushed Yoshi up towards the window, Kazuo could only watch. Yoshi clawed at the wall trying to get up to the window. Behind him Kazuo saw a glimpse of Satoshi's eye widen, less than a second later he stumbled and Yoshi flew to the ground. 7:03, two minutes remaining. Yoshi quickly jumped to his feet and wiped the blood away from his nose before they tried the same technique again. With a stretched arm Yoshi's fingers gripped the edge of the window, Satoshi howled with the effort of lifting Yoshi up. Yoshi pushed the small window open and gradually squeezed out. With one last struggle his legs disappeared through the small portal. Satoshi turned and motioned for Kazuo. He half walked, half ran and quickly put his first leg forward. 7:04, one minute remaining. Kazuo could feel the roughness of the wall as he clawed against it. Yoshi's arm extended out of the window. No need for any hesitation there, Kazuo grabbed his arm firmly and felt himself lift clear and pushed his way out of the narrow window. 40 seconds remaining. Kazuo felt a brief breath of relief through his lungs as his collar stopped beeping. He and Yoshi both offered an arm as Satoshi took a run up. He stretched out but didn't quite catch their arms. 35 seconds. He shook himself and tried again, this time he caught both arms and held them tight. Kazuo could feel his entire weight as he did this. 25 seconds. Satoshi's feet climbed against the wall as Kazuo saw his face move in closer to the window, he was panting with the effort of it. 15 seconds. Satoshi was getting closer but then his weight shifted. He lost his grip of Yoshi's arm. Kazuo felt all Satoshi's weight threatening to pull his arm out of its socket. He cried out with the effort of trying desperately to regain control but he could feel Satoshi slipping. 10 seconds. The beeping quickened. Then there it was, the feeling Kazuo dreaded, he felt Satoshi's arm slip away. With a loud crack Satoshi fell flat against the floor. He stood back up and looked at them from the window. He checked his watch. Then Satoshi smiled slightly showing his teeth. He raised one of his hands in a trademark thumbs up. 2 seconds. 1 second. Boom.

A blinding flash brimming with pure brute force shattered the window with a deafening roar. Kazuo shielded himself from the shards of glass. Black smoke slowly drifted out of the smashed window. It continued to drift up towards the clear sky. The ground lightly thudded as Yoshi fell onto his knees and looked up, moist eyes pointing to the heavens, seemingly asking why. The smoke reached Kazuo's nostrils and his eyes began to water, then they kept on watering and refused to stop. The fact that he didn't have his day pack or any weapons was no longer a relevant one. Suddenly Kazuo became aware that they were not alone. He wheeled around to see the grief choked face of Atsuko. Satoshi's girlfriend. It was the first time Kazuo had seen her since the game began. Her eyes were wide and heavy with tears, her black, slightly curled hair was partially draped in wet strands across her face and her mouth hung open, quivering. Kazuo moved sympathetically over to her, arms facing forward and apart invitingly. Atsuko's expression didn't change nor did her gaze ever leave the house. A menacing mechanical click emanated through the smoky atmosphere. Kazuo hadn't noticed the crossbow she was holding. She was pointing it at him now. Kazuo backed off but she was looking at him now, no emotion could categorize the look she was wearing. The closest word to describing it would have been 'burning'. Kazuo made a quick and irrational decision, he turned his back and walked away. A crossbow bolt whistled through the air and imbedded itself into a tree just ahead of him. There was nothing else left to do.

Kazuo ran over the rough turf away from that wretched house, he could hear footsteps behind him and he knew exactly who it was, now way he was going to look back. He weaved in and out between the trees. He would never know that he was in the final 5, he would never know. His chest burned as his breath was ripped away from him by fear and fatigue, he had never seen her like this, he could feel himself getting more tired, then he felt something else. Tearing. Then heat, all around his chest and shoulder, twisting pain around one point. He sank onto his knees, head hung and finally swayed over to be propped up by his left shoulder. The last sound Kazuo heard was the two muffled thuds as two feet stood over his dying body. There she was, crossbow in hand, quivering with pain, tears rolling down her face. Atsuko. Chin shaking, eyes glossed in tears, she dropped the crossbow at her feet and collapsed on her knees, wiping the hair out of Kazuo's eyes, she gently placed one hand on his cold cheek, leaned over, tears raining on Kazuo's face, and whispered in his ear.

'I'm….so…..sorry….'

Everything shrank into ultimate darkness. No... NO! It was not going to end like this. Kazuo opened his eyes to see Atsuko disappear into the forest. He strained his hand down towards his pocket. Kazuo wasn't stupid, he knew he had to be precautionary in a game like this. There was only one thing that would save him now. He pulled the needle already filled with the combat drug serum from his pocket. See Kazuo had his plan all along should something like this happen. If he were mortally wounded he would take the combat drug, not to live, but for a chance to do some good before the end. He thought of Sakura as the serum entered his blood stream. Kazuo's last words on this earth were simple and clear.

"See you soon."

**Kyo**

He'd been keeping an eye on them since the moment this whole thing started. Kyo wanted to be the protector but now he branded himself a filthy coward. He'd seen his friends go through the hells of the game and been unable to step in. Remained the observer. Now he was watching them through the trees as they kept moving. Mitsuru was in front, Masako and Hanako were trying to calm Miho who was overwhelmed with wailing grief over Tetsuya's death. He wanted to step in, he really did, but he knew he'd be shunned by them after he took the blame for the fight that Satoshi and Yoshi had. Kyo brushed his long hair out of his eyes and slowly crept through the trees. To an observer he would have appeared to have been stalking them, this was not the case. Now if something ensued he really did intend to intervene. Suddenly Mitsuru stopped and looked almost directly at Kyo. Kyo ducked down silently into the bushes. Lying on his back he heard Mitsuru's low voice speak.

"Someone's following us."

Kyo held his breath, he'd been spotted, or so he thought. A gunshot ripped through the air above Kyo and he saw its trail as it passed. He heard it whistle. With a strange, concentrated sound more like a dart than a normal bullet another one was fired. The shooter was standing behind Kyo but he couldn't see him. He heard Mitsuru's voice once again.

"EVERYBODY DOWN"

Then he heard running footsteps.

"HANAKO!" Sounded Mitsuru's voice.

Several more shots fired past.

"STAY DOWN!"

Kyo slowly looked through the trees and saw feet moving away. He soon lost sight but he still heard them, so he followed. They moved slowly, gradually the frantic feet of the still running Hanako came within earshot. Then the shooter fired again. Kyo heard her body tumble across the ground. A cold monstrous feeling devoured Kyo's insides. He began to run then he saw it. The forest edge curved around so he was looking at Keitaro's back, he was standing over Hanako. She was obscured but behind Keitaro's leg he could see the blood surrounding her head and hair. She was dead. Kyo gripped the tree next to him for support as the same icy monster tried to tear its way out of his throat. Kyo looked up in time to see Keitaro point the gun in the direction of a terrified Masako. The cliff edge wasn't far behind her. Kyo ran at full pelt towards an unsuspecting Keitaro. He leant forwards and sprang out, tackling the much smaller boy and knocking him to the ground. Raw with rage Kyo drove his fist into Keitaro's face hard and felt his nose twist and crack under the pressure. Then Kyo felt a burning pain in his leg. The little bastard had shot him in the leg! Kyo fell back with the searing pain that was too much to bear. When he looked back up he had a black gun nozzle between his lips. He was frozen to the spot. In the end he did nothing. Kyo closed his eyes. The taste of metal was the last thing he really felt.

**Yoshinori**

Around the same time Yoshi was sat in the same spot he'd been in since Satoshi died. He could now see Satoshi sprawled on the ground through the basement window, but only his legs. There was blood shimmering on the scorched ground. Yoshi was shaking like a leaf being mercilessly battered by a gale. He'd lost Tetsuya, Satoshi, Noboru and Ichiro; fuck knows what had happened to Kaz. What could he do now? The leaf fell. Yoshi just started walking, he didn't know where or to what purpose, he just walked. After about ten minutes he saw Wakaba, filled with rage he picked up the pace, how dare she lock them in? She deserved nothing better than to... Wait.

Wakaba was running, or stumbling, she fell to the ground. Then someone else appeared, it was only a silhouette but the posture and tidiness of the long hair suggested it was Sho. He had a mallet in his left hand. Wakaba leant herself up against a tree. She stretched her arms out, pleading with him to stop. Clearly it was futile. Sho lifted the mallet above his head, it dipped back slightly. Wakaba began to scream at him to stop. Nothing doing. The mallet fell down and smashed against her with a final scream. Her arms went limp. Even though the tree was blocking line of sight somewhat, Yoshi could tell the mallet had gone into her head.

Sho turned to leave but then reared back in shock. Another slightly taller figure appeared and drove what appeared to be a long spear into Sho's chest. Given the distance these figures were again difficult to pick out, however Yoshi deduced that it was Seta. Seta rested his foot against Sho and pushed him off the weapon. Seta, he was a bastard, what is more, Yoshi wanted to kill him now. Yoshi wanted revenge, he didn't know what for, he just wanted revenge. His mind was fuelled by pure impotent rage. He was an ant with the mind of a raging bull. He ran, unarmed, full pelt towards Seta and him caught off guard by punching his jaw. Not needing any explanation of this Seta turned and swiped the spear. Yoshi felt the pain across his chest, it just made him angrier. His shirt had a tear down it, he ripped it all the way off and began to beckon with his hands for Seta to come at him once more. Seta held the javelin tip like a jouster and charged. Screaming in fury Yoshi grabbed the tip and yanked it to the left. He felt the sharp end push him back until he hit a tree, it went though him. On the other end Seta hung limply forward. Yoshi had pulled the javelin so that the other end was pointed at Seta's chest, it had speared Yoshi to a tree but the force had driven it into Seta who was already dead. His head hung back and he slid off the spear onto the ground. Yoshi laughed and coughed up a globule of blood.

The pain was unbelievable. Yoshi could feel his very essence draining out of him in a pool of dead blood cells and plasma. He saw yellow liquid from his liver dripping from the pierced hole as well. He was reminded of the first person he killed and how similar his situation was. His stomach burned and it spread through his entire body. He felt his murderous alter ego drift away. Yoshi coughed violently and more blood was spat from his mouth. A sudden drifting weakness began to overtake him, his body felt heavier and he knew he was going to die. With one final cough Yoshi attempted a light laugh.

"Fucking javelin, what a way to go." He croakily moaned.

With one last heaving breath Yoshinori Ikari felt coldness run its way up his body turning him to stone. His body leant forward. All was quiet.

**Mitsuru**

He rounded the corner just in time to see it happen. Masako screamed and then a bullet hit her in the head. Blood spurted out then she flopped lifelessly to the floor. It felt so strange. Like it wasn't her lying there, but he knew it was. As he rounded the corner cautiously he saw that the shooter was gone. Hanako lay on the ground, her eyes milky but almost entirely veiled by her hair. More blood surrounding her. Kyo lay on top of her in much the same way, save for the fact his mouth hung open and his lips were laced in the red liquid. Mitsuru breathed heavily and reared back at this sight, it was almost too much to bear, Mitsuru couldn't take any more death than this, it was overwhelming.

In a cruel coincidence he heard Miho scream behind him. He ran back to discover it was a scream of surprise more than anything. Atsuko was back, draped in tears. After catching her breath she spoke, Mitsuru instantly wished that she hadn't. She confirmed that Satoshi and Kazuo were both dead. Mitsuru pounded the ground with his fists and shrieked, feeling his throat burn. Miho collapsed and cried. Yet another damned scream interrupted. Kauri, another girl, long hair, blonde highlights, short, a little chubby, tumbled out of the forest and threw a fistful of throwing stars frantically back into the trees. A steady stream of bullets hammered into her and she collapsed, falling over the edge of the cliff face. Mitsuru was aghast, death was following him. Ryu appeared out of the trees. He was moderate height with messy hair, he, unlike most, had changed clothes; an Uzi was clasped in his right hand. He turned to see the three unarmed students sat on the ground. He smiled and lifted the gun to point it at them. Mitsuru honestly thought it was the end then. Death had been following him since he arrived; he just hadn't expected it to catch up again so quickly after Noboru and Ichiro. Rustling in the trees. Before Mitsuru or Ryu for that matter could comprehend it Kazuo Yagami tore out of the trees and violently kicked the Uzi out of Ryu's hands before stabbing him with an arrow, Kazuo, Atsuko had said he was dead. It was hardly surprising she made that assumption.

A few quick stabs to the chest and Ryu was dead, Kazuo used his foot to roll the body over the edge of the cliff and threw the arrow down with him. He stood there, oceanic wind blowing against him, panting, with a heavily bleeding open wound in his chest. His eyes were wide, darting and bloodshot. Explanations aside, Kaz was one of Mitsuru's closest friends; Mitsuru felt an amazingly relieving sensation of happiness in seeing him. Then everything seemed to slow down.

Kazuo's eyes narrowed. He looked down. Another, smaller wound in the dead centre of his chest. More blood dripping from it. Kazuo slowly moved his hand up to it and wiped some of the blood off, he examined it on his hand. He leant his head back and breathed out, sounding almost satisfied. Mitsuru briefly glanced back to see Miho staring with her hand clapped over her mouth, terrified. For him, all the pain and suffering had ended, he'd known this was coming, but Mitsuru could tell that just by looking at him. He brought his head back down, he was smiling. He narrowed his eyes further, affectionately looking from Atsuko to Miho to Mitsuru. Then he closed his eyes as tears trickled down both his cheeks at an equal rate. With one more gaze of his grey eyes, framed in world weary darkness, he breathed out again with that serene smile and leant back, letting himself fall over the edge of the cliff face. Mitsuru reacted and ran to look over the edge. He saw a trail of teardrops line the air and Kazuo's body tumbled down across the gentle gust headfirst. The high pitched calls of the two girls seemed to be muffled by the soft wind. Kazuo Yagami made contact with the deep blue water below and disappeared with a swelling white circle.

"Ah..." Mitsuru groaned.

He let grief overtake him as a single tear followed Kazuo's down into the blue. He heard that same gun click over his head. He turned to see Keitaro smiling an ugly, grotesque smile of murder. This face only made Mitsuru feel one thing, for the first time in the game, murderous rage. Mitsuru's grip tightened around his weapon, with lightning speed he struck.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Urashima Alumni

**Hatari**

He wiped the condensation away from the helicopter window and looked out across the ocean. There was a small sprinkling of mountainous islands dotted across the deep blue water. He was told he would recognize Urashima Island as the only one with a circular shape and that it would be one of the mid-sized ones. Hatari adjusted the headset he was wearing and gently pushed the microphone towards his mouth.

"How much longer?" He yelled over the noise of the blades.

"About twenty minutes." The pilot loudly responded.

Hatari cursed under his breath and adjusted the seatbelt tying down his waist. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a slightly torn photograph, pictured on it were his wife and eldest son, who was now attending Tokyo University. He leant back and remembered what he had been told when the government 'hired' him for this job, he'd never heard that term used more loosely in his life.

"Be dislikeable." They'd said. "Make light of their situation and act with noticeable fickleness, that way they'll be infuriated at your position of power above them and be all the more determined to fight."

Hatari remembered it because it had felt like a very patronising debrief to be given. He knew the role he was chosen to play. By trade Hatari was a psychologist who worked with troubled teenagers under a government controlled agency. He also used to be part of the Nakano Theatrical School and therefore had a degree of acting experience. These were the two areas of expertise stipulated in the job description of Battle Royale announcers. They were chosen, not 'hired' though that is how it was put on the letter, Hatari had never been one to oppose the government's rule though it is true to say this was the closest he'd ever come to that. It comforted him to know that at least the soldiers and surveillance team were conscripted as well.

A little over 20 minutes later Hatari stepped off the helicopter, brushed his office drone jacket off and tucked his long black hair back behind his ears. Hatari was all of 34 years old, his aforementioned long hair was all brushed back save for shorter strands that hung down across his forehead like that of some anime character. He had a small nose and brown eyes quite far apart, he looked a good deal younger than his years. He walked across the concrete helipad over to a door that lead downstairs. He took a moment to look at the island, houses both eastern and western style dotted among a vast area of forest, intersected in places by open areas of field and a coastline that was almost entirely cliff faces but for a beach with a lighthouse on the west side, though Hatari couldn't see it, he remembered it from the map he'd been mailed. The main complex was in the exact centre of the island almost, it was a simple affair, a rectangular building with another smaller rectangle extending from it. All of it was fenced off along with two large propane tanks at the edge of the fencing. There was also a tall sniper tower on the northwest corner.

Inside the best description that came to mind was grey, grey hallways on the first floor with four grey surveillance rooms, a grey bathroom and a grey break room that served grey coffee. The bottom floor was much to the same effect; however it was open plan, simply a big room with hardwood floors that was totally empty. The attached section was the soldier's quarters, both Hatari and the surveillance teams slept in bunks right next to their work station. Hatari walked back up the stairwell and went to his work station, as he walked through the door there was a computer and an attached microphone to the left and a single bed to the right as well as a whiteboard with a schedule on it. It read:

09:15: Final staff arrival at Urashima Island.

09:45: Final staff debrief.

10:00: Competitor arrival at Urashima Island.

10:30: Medical checks administration and collar attachment commences.

That was all for the first day, Hatari had already been informed that the student's sedated condition had to be maintained for that entire day so they had to remain under constant surveillance. The schedule for the second day followed.

07:00: Student transport and detainment commences.

08:30: Collars activated and deterioration of sedative commences

08:45: Opening explanatory announcement. (This was highlighted in red, making it clear that this was Hatari's job)

09:00: Locking mechanism released. GAME START.

Every other notation following that just said '07:00: Morning Announcement'. All Hatari had to do beyond then was writing a psychological profile on all 40 of the students. Given that the game could take anywhere between 7 days and 12 hours this was no mean feat. He had an introduction piece on every single one of them, he had his own copies of these but flash card sized versions had been nailed to the headboard above his computer like some youth rogues gallery. Hatari found this all to be very disheartening, he was more than aware that most of them were definitely going to die.

Around half an hour later following the fifteen minute long rant by the surveillance administrator the students arrived. They had been bundled onto a fleet of 8 Chinooks and kept on special restraining beds during the journey. Hatari watched them being wheeled in on stretchers from the window then went downstairs. He wanted to make sure he saw them in person before the game began. They were kept in alphabetical order and were all hooked up to IV drips so they were at close to full strength when they woke up. Hatari was more shocked than he had anticipated when he saw them. All still in uniform sprawled across hospital beds, totally unaware of what hell they were about to endure. Hatari moved across with his student roster checking names to faces. He mumbled the names to himself as he moved across.

"12 Kurume Tetsuya...15 Minami Masako... 20 Nara Noboru... 23 Oshii Mitsuru..."

Hatari observed the fact that number 23 could barely fit on the hospital bed, for a Japanese kid he was very tall. He tried not to see them as people but rather as statistics, it was somehow easier for him that way, after all part of his job was to make these students hate him.

"39 Watari Wakaba and finally student number 40 Yagami Kazuo." Hatari finished.

He had glanced over all of them and taken a good look, he hadn't made predictions or anything of that nature, he wanted to remain impartial during the game's course. Hatari cleared his throat and walked over to the back of the room, running his eyes across the kids one more time before he went upstairs to review their psychological profiles.

By that evening Hatari had detailed additional notes about all of them in bullet point format. It occurred to him that most of the students on the island had probably never experienced psycho-analysis in their life nor would they be aware that they were subject to it. Hatari had actually counselled two of the forty students himself during his time. This class wasn't picked at random, this was one of the fifty worst behaved junior high classes in the entire of Japan. Hiroshi Kutsuki had a criminal record having violently assaulted an old man with switch blade, Gendo Niida stole a car, Kenji Shima and the rest of his friends (Takahashi Sugimura, Seta Akira and Tenjin Ishimi) were all under police probation for a multitude of suspected criminal offences, most notably regularly reported assaults of young girls. When Hatari spoke to Kenji in person, the boy had made it clear that he did not see girls as human beings, he saw them in the same light as household pets, they had lower rights and lower status and the fact that they contested this claim justified mistreatment. While Hatari was familiar with this frame of mind he had never seen it exhibited by a boy of 15 (this was two years prior). Hatari only hoped that Kenji didn't get too far dragged into the framework of the game.

Sleep was virtually impossible; Hatari simply continued making preliminary notes up until about 6 the following morning. An hour after that Hatari saw a large green truck leave with one quarter of the students loaded into the back of it. Three more left after it and they went in completely separate directions before returning more than an hour later. Hatari turned to his computer monitor and watched as the security camera feeds clicked into life. In total there were 15,000 cameras and wire taps dotted throughout the island. There was no place left unwatched and many areas were observed from multiple angles. With 20 men on the surveillance team they were each assigned two students to keep an eye on at the beginning though as they lost students they were told to keep tabs on areas of interest after that, the opening job was just to get an impression of how things were going to turn out. Suddenly the second computer which displayed a 3 dimensional map of the island began to beep, it was currently set on an aerial view and little red dots began to appear all over it with small numbers above them. The collars had been turned on. Hatari now had fifteen minutes to prepare for when the students would be fully awake, it was then that he had to activate his microphone and tell them where they were and explain the rules. In the next ten minutes Hatari watched as the students began to stir. Interestingly it was the girls who began to wake up first. The boys simply tossed and turned but eventually everyone was more or less fully awake and a great many of them were panicking, one person had even apparently realised that this was Battle Royale. This person was none other than Kyo Tanaka, student 34. Hatari had noticed his distinguishable look when he walked past his bed the previous day. He had unusually long hair and while not the tallest was still a considerable height. His profile stated that he was 'eccentric' and 'creatively intelligent' as well as having 'a record of several violent episodes but always in self defence'. It also said that he had a 'social attitude but made no effort to mask his unusual personality traits and was therefore very difficult to befriend'. Hatari hadn't expected him to make much of an impact but now he was suspecting differently. Hatari's alarm began to blare, time for the speech. Hatari held his breath, then clicked the talk button. For about 30 seconds he said nothing, then he coughed accidentally, he had cued himself and he had to say something now.

'Ahem. May I have your attention please, congratulations; your class has been handpicked to participate in 2013's annual Experimental Youth Combatant Program.' He said it almost robotically and instantly realised he'd taken the exact wrong tone for this.

He watched people react to it which confirmed Kyo's pre-existing assumption that he had been picked for the game. A lot of people cried, some people merely slumped onto the ground while others screamed furiously. Hatari tried to take his instructions into account then began to speak once more.

'Anyhoo, you will find yourself in a 4 metre by 5 metre cell, this cell is below ground and there are 50 of them on the island, your class is occupying 40 of them, this is Urashima Island, I'm not going to divulge exactly where it is, but it has been uninhabited since it became the new battle arena 6 years ago. You will find that you have a metal collar around your neck.'

As Hatari said this in a musing voice that was an attempt at parodying monotone announcements you'd hear at a train station, he watched as the students began one by one to examine the metal collars. Hatari found this interesting though he didn't really want to. He took another ten seconds then got back into it.

'By now I'm sure you've noticed it,' Hatari tried to make it seem like he wasn't watching them. 'This collar will keep track of your current location so we can keep an eye on you, it will also monitor your vital signs so we know when to cross you off so to speak. This collar also serves another purpose, it contains a very powerful wired explosive, if 24 hours pass with no casualties, or if the 1 week limited is exceeded, we will provide 1 extra's hours notice and then detonate all remaining collars.'

This last line proved a very easy one to say, too easy, Hatari didn't even pause. Talking about death seemed as if it wouldn't take as much adjusting to as first anticipated.

'In your respective cells you will find your randomly assigned weapon, all of which are stored in green boxes, you can carry them around if you like but I'd advise against it, they're impractical. One quick note about that, due to a mix up with the security cafeteria and the hand-to-hand weapon supplies, one of the bags contains a ladle. I apologize for this mix up but there's nothing that can be done, we have no way of tracing who got it. Due to the fact that there are 40 of you and 50 weapons, the remaining 10 have been scattered in various locations on the island: a rapier, a bõ staff, a machete, a boomerang, a rather nice scythe, a bayonet, a long bow, a belt of 10 kunai knives, a silenced Wolfram PPK pistol, a Glock pistol and a large mallet are all still out there, mostly in the abandoned buildings that dot the island, happy hunting. The second bag contains the following: 7 days worth of food and sanitary rations, a jacket, a sleeping bag, ammunition for anyone with a gun, a med kit, binoculars and a special surprise that's new this year.'

Another pause to allow the students to react and look through their bags, at this stage Hatari felt he was doing rather well, all things considered.

'I just paused there so you could find it for yourselves, ah the wave of technology, it's a special palmtop device that'll make the remainder of your lives that little bit easier, Whether as last year we made you draw out the markers on a map, this year we have this, every morning at 7 we'll electronically update the danger zones, these squares are marked red on the map, should you enter one of these zones your collar will start screeching at you, this means you've got 5 minutes to get the hell outta dodge before you go KABLAMO! He he he, sorry, ad libbing a bit there, anyway, some areas are always like this, such as our headquarters, the others are 5 spots that change every day, making sure people don't stay put you see. This palmtop indicates those spots, shows you where you are, bleeps when someone's within about 5 metres of you and indicates where they are when they get this close. You can also access the national news, watch the previous day's episode as soon as it's available and if you're too lazy for that you can check who's dead and have a look at their final moments, oh and we've put Tetris on there. Finally, the ocean perimeter is guarded by guns on all sides so don't get ideas about swimming away, if the guns don't get you the collars will. I'm also required to tell you that you're next of kin have been informed of this and that the only other way you can be let off the island is if the diagnostic we ran on you while you were under reveals any serious disease, should that occur you'll be declared unfit to compete, your collar deactivated and you'll immediately airlifted out, if anyone interferes with this process the helicopters have mounted turrets. You're cell will open in T-minus 10 minutes; good luck to you all and enjoy the game. Oh one final point, if you're going to do something drastic, and lets face it you will, try and do it in an area with lots of cameras, those multi-angled shots are pure gold, until tomorrow little soldiers, sayonara.'

Hatari leant back in his chair and watched the students drink all the information in, it was a pantheon of emotion that Hatari found difficult to stomach. However Hatari found himself developing preferences. Twelve of them. He didn't know why but he had developed something of a liking for a dozen students as he watched them. This was because of the way they were acting in response to the understandably difficult news they'd received. These students were Satoshi Haruno, Yoshinori Ikari, Tetsuya Kurume, Hanako Matsui, Masako Minami, Noboru Nara, Mitsuru Oshii, Atsuko Ozakai, Miho Uehara, Ichiro Tamaki, Kyo Tanaka and Kazuo Yagami. It stated in their profiles that these kids were all friends and their attitudes made Hatari wonder how they would act once released onto the main island. He decided that he was going to devote his focus to these 12 and keep a documentation of everything they did.

So it was that through the next 6 days Hatari observed them closely, as he did his attachment to them grew. He watched in horror as Yoshinori twisted into a cold blooded killer before he and Satoshi turned on each other. He saw Ichiro's incredible application of leadership and resolution as he saved more and more people. As this happened Hatari was relieved to see the kids come together, except two. It pained Hatari to see the self exclusion and sacrifice made by Kyo and it was almost as horrible witnessing Kazuo's excruciating journey of self questioning and bereavement. Eventually Hatari had to helplessly watch as Noboru and Ichiro were both ruthlessly killed. Then Tetsuya snapped, became a killer and was killed in turn. The worst thing about this was he could have predicted these events but he had no way of warning them, Naoko, the girl who killed Noboru and Ichiro, had already tried to kill two other people during her movement around the island, moreover it was by following Mistsuru and company that she came to be there in the first place. Keitaro was the same, he spent the first few days hunkered down in the bell tower shooting at whoever came by, the temptation to activate the speakers and warn Tetsuya that Keitaro was following him was utterly overwhelming.

Kyo's journey was particularly unusual, after he shouldered the blame for the grievances between Satoshi and Yoshinori he spent most of his time in seclusion just outside the main settlement, observing his friends. At one point he caught a glimpse of Sho approaching, armed with a mallet and Hiroshi's flamethrower, Kyo stealthily managed to scare him away, making use of the longbow he found earlier on. Of course things had gone on outside of this group of twelve, another social group which included the twins Hinata and Yuusuke had come together remarkably quickly, they were all drama students and were utterly terrified by the situation, making it all the more tragic when Shuuya Tokugawa killed them all. Shuuya himself was a tragic case, early on he'd spotted Takahashi threatening Sakura at the point of a sword, he'd called Takahashi over to him and told him to leave her be, Takahashi somehow managed to manipulate him into taking the combat drugs, all five doses. Hatari knew right then that the effect of such a high dosage would lead to Shuuya's death but before that he'd be overwhelmed by bloodlust, Takahashi took a vantage point and just sat there watching his little experiment play out. Then there was Seta, though he ran with a bad crowd Seta was a good sort, he never intended to be put in the situation he eventually found himself in, early in the game he'd ran into Temari, who he agreed to travel with but upon meeting Hiroshi (who he was friends with and therefore trusted) she met a grizzly fate, Seta refused to associate with Hiroshi after that, not long after he ran into four of the girls, Kyoko and her friends, he warned them about Hiroshi but they didn't listen and actually drove him away only to be killed in a fire later that night. Hiroshi started following him and taunting him until he managed to sneak away and take refuge in the middle settlement, Hiroshi looking in the wrong house and ended up dead. Seta's only crime was fearing for his safety after that, which made him feel almost compelled to do what he did to Miho.

The evening of the fifth day, Hatari sat on the bed reading the order he'd been given over and over again. It read as follows:

'In light of the slow movement of the game, Battle Royale's higher management has ordered that all standing buildings become marked danger zones in order to flush out any and all students that may be hiding away and avoiding direct combat. Without any shelter the entertainment level of the show will begin to rise as the inevitable final showdown draws ever closer.'

Everything about this letter was disturbing. Particularly the way it was phrased, Hatari had never once thought of the game as a show but now he remembered that everything happening would be edited and televised in a 11pm time slot on Tokyo TV every Friday night. Terms like 'direct combat' and 'entertainment level' used together made Hatari's blood run cold. Students that he now cared about were slaughtering each other for the purpose of entertainment. Given that it had been commonplace since he was a boy, Hatari had never questioned it, but after being press ganged into announcing for the game, he was beginning to see how sick it really was. Worst of all he knew that he was going to have to inform the students, many of which were now hiding out and avoiding fighting in standing buildings, that they would die if they remained. Hatari would have to sound angry, vengeful and like he was taking relish in what he was doing.

At around midnight Hatari saw something on the screen that affected his self doubt further. Wakaba Watari, an injured female student who was staying with Kazuo, Satoshi and Yoshinori, was sneaking out and she had locked the three of them in the basement. She betrayed them. Hatari hadn't seen it coming, but it meant that if, inevitably, the danger zones went active at 7:00 the next day, the three of them would likely be killed. At 06:58 as per the plan, Hatari gave his speech.

"Morning people, we appear to have a serious problem. Another slow day yesterday wasn't it? Kudos to the people who took down Tenjin Ishimi and Tetsuya Kurume, however 2 deaths in one day is dismal and as a result we have a little surprise for you little fuck faces, as of 7 o' clock, every single standing building on the island is now a danger zone. Think of it as an incentive, good luck, now get killing."

Every word was more painful than the last. Afterwards Hatari shrieked and knocked the speaker off the table before burying his head in his folded arms. Seconds later he heard a shout from another surveillance room.

"Everyone quick! Turn to house 3B! Yagami, Ikari and Haruno have been locked in!"

The resulting commotion suggested excitement at this prospect. At around 7:03 Hatari bit the bullet and switched on the monitor. On the outside view he saw Yoshinori and Kazuo desperately trying to pull Satoshi to safety. To Hatari's relief it looked as if they were going to make it to safety. Minutes later Hatari's tension was torn away and replaced with poisonous guilt as he saw Satoshi disappear in a cloud of black smog. It only got worse from there.

The first sign of trouble when Hatari found that Seta had left the settlement, he was heavily armed and had been walking all night seemingly without aim or purpose. He ran afoul of Sho shortly after the announcement, Sho claimed he wanted Seta to see something, that something turned out to be Wakaba. He'd already raped her once. Seta attacked Sho but Wakaba tried to run, which resulted in her brutal murder. Seta snapped then, all the compassion he'd shown before, futile though it had often been, melted away as he stabbed Sho. Hatari began to hear the guards reactions to what was going on.

As the other rooms were overwhelmed by shouting, hollering and jeering more and more students were killed. They cawed as Keitaro executed Hanako, Kyo and Masako. They screamed as Yoshinori and Seta's ires converged and they both faded away. They banged the table with their fists as Kazuo killed Ryu and Keitaro shot him. Hatari could only watch in horror as the brave boy fell from the cliff and disappeared into the water. Finally he saw Mitsuru brutally dispatch Keitaro in an act of revenge with the katana he'd taken from Yuji, slicing him through the neck which killed him instantly. Hatari realised that with that last kill, Mitsuru, Atsuko and Miho were the only ones left. These three disturbed and shaken children would have to kill each other or else be executed by the surveillance team who shouted at the screens like sports fans. That was when Hatari made his final decision.

Slinging a rifle from the storage locker over his shoulder and concealing a hand grenade in his pocket Hatari walked out into the front courtyard of the facility, complaining that he needed some fresh air. Casually Hatari pulled the pin of the grenade and tossed it over the wall of the power generator section before using his emergency key to walk out of the gate and into the warzone.

By the time the grenade detonated Hatari had already started the motor of the green Humvee parked outside the operation station. With this explosion all surveillance and alarm systems went down. No more footage would be fed. This sick game had officially been cancelled. Hatari sped down the main road as the jeep emitted a guttural growl. He was going to find them, then he was going to get them out.

Hatari leant forward focusing his eyes on the road. The Humvee trundled down it pushing 60mph as Hatari's seat rattled and the engine continued to snarl. Without a power supply the remote connection to the collars had been severed completely. There was no way the students could be killed from the operation station now. Hatari planned to take them to the boat and report that the remainder of the game had been cancelled due to an extremist attack on the island by anti-government agents. It was believable. He turned a sharp corner and felt G-force sucker him to the seat, making him part of the car. He looked at the map, without the navigation system operational it was difficult to determine where they had gone however he knew them and he knew they wouldn't have moved far, if he was correct then he would be there in just under five minutes.

He felt nervous, like some sick inversion of going to meet a celebrity. He had only ever seen them unconscious or on a screen, what frightened him most was how they would react to what was going to happen. They had been through a worse hell than Hatari could imagine, but he wanted to experience it with them. He wanted to be a part of this hell, he had observed it with arrogance from above but now he'd cut off his wings and he was falling fast into the fire, just to pull the innocent ones out of it.

Hatari saw the cliff edge approaching and slammed down on the brake pedal before getting out, he left the engine running, He could hear Atsuko's voice, he had to be close. His rifle began to swing back and forth as his pace increased into a sprint, his heartbeat matched his constricted breathing. He felt a cold, suffocating feeling overtake him as the voices became closer. As Hatari reached a sort of corner in the cliff face he knew that behind the line of trees ahead of him was where they were. He ran straight through them. The leaves and branches flew past his eye line, brushing and breaking against his body as he dashed. With one last stumble he broke back out into the light of day.

Hatari was looking at the ground, panting. Gradually he looked up, the first thing he saw was Mitsuru's feet. They were spread apart, one pointing forward and the other behind, facing side on as if he was in a martial arts stance. He then saw that both Atsuko and Miho were standing behind him, their legs were covered by tights and were close together. Though their stature and size greatly differed they were both standing in similar positions. Finally Hatari saw their faces. Mitsuru looked resolute, his eyes had been reddened by tears and he also looked angry. There was blood on his shirt. Mitsuru had the blade of the katana pointed at Hatari's chest.

The two girls looked at him in wonder and confusion, both leaning to the side to look past Mitsuru at him, likely confused as to why a man in his 30s had suddenly appeared. Hatari tried to reclaim his composure and made himself stand up straight. He brushed his long hair back behind his ears and tucked his shirt in. He'd been wearing clean clothes for the past week whether as none of these three had changed even once. Hatari raised his hands to indicate he wasn't a threat and after fully catching his breath he opened his mouth to speak.

"I came to –"

"It's you!" Mitsuru exclaimed. "I'd know that voice anywhere, stand still, don't move. Why the hell are you here? Did you come to make fun of us more? Or did you get bored and decide to take us out yourself?"

"Mitsuru I –"

"DON'T SAY MY NAME!" He angrily interrupted again. "I never want to hear you say my name in your sick little obituary voice! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

"BECAUSE I DIDN'T CHOOSE TO BE HERE!"

Mitsuru's eyes widened and he took a step back, Atsuko covered her mouth with her hand in shock. Hatari once again regained control of himself.

"Look," He continued. "You can brand me a liar all you want but that attitude I gave you on the speaker was an act, fake, it was my job to make you all angry and full of resentment. I also had to watch the game and write profiles on all of you as I went, I'm a psychiatrist, not a war monger." Hatari took a breath, then kept on speaking. "I know how hard it's been for you, I've seen it all, I had to watch every student die one by one. Letting you three wait for your collars to detonate now would've been too much, you're the last three."

"Shut – Shut up!" Mitsuru yelled, shaking his head in disbelief. "You just came here to finish us off! Just go!"

"Mitsuru listen to me, I blew up the power generator, they can't track you or detonate your collars now. I came in a jeep, I can get you three out of here, let me deactivate the collars first just in case."

Hatari reached into his pocket, he had the key that could deactivate the collars. He showed it to them, it was resembled a USB flash drive however it had no plug and it was smaller. When it made contact with a collar it would release a magnetic signal that turned the collar off, it was battery powered, Hatari had taken it from the main office before he left. He motioned towards Mitsuru who just held the blade up.

"Please Mitsuru. I know how you must be feeling but you have to trust me."

Mitsuru barely reacted to this statement, though internally his resolution wavered he evidently wished to show no sign of backing down. Suddenly Atsuko walked forwards, she pushed the katana aside and stopped around ten centimetres short of Hatari. She raised her hands to show she wasn't going to try anything. After a short pause Hatari put the device forward and pushed the switch down. The device beeped then a split second later the collar did. Hatari put the key in his front shirt pocket and put his hands on either side of the collar, he pulled gently and with a compressed hiss the collar came apart at the front and opened like a gate from a hinge on the back. Hatari placed the collar in Atsuko's waiting hands, she walked over the cliff face and tossed it over the edge before sinking onto her knees and bursting into tears.

When Hatari turned back Miho had stepped forward and was looking up at him with a face of understanding, it changed into one demonstrative of resolution.

"Get this fucking thing off of me." She stated almost jokingly.

Hatari smiled and nodded before once again pushing the beeper down. Once the collar had responded she motioned for him to stop before she took it off herself. She put it on the floor and prepared to stamp on it but Hatari stopped her, signing with his hands that it would blow up if she did. She nodded and picked it back up. Holding it like a discus she cried out and tossed it out to sea with all of her strength, she then in turn sank to her knees, succumbing to an amalgamation of laughter and crying, she embraced Atsuko. Finally Mitsuru stabbed the katana's tip into the ground and stretched his arms out to allow Hatari to turn his collar off. Hatari complied and with one final beep Mitsuru whipped the oppressive metal ring from his neck and ritualistically cast it into the sea. He then did the same with their remaining weapons. After that the three of them stood and looked out to sea as the sun began to darken on its way towards setting. Hatari let them have their moment before placing his hand on Mitsuru's shoulder and gently speaking in his ear that it was time to go.

They slowly proceeded over to the dark green humvee. Hatari slid into the driver's seat and Mitsuru pushed the passenger's seat back for Atsuko and Miho to get in, almost like they were going on a road trip. Clicking the passenger's seat back Mitsuru jumped in and turned to look at Hatari.

"Let's get out of here."

Hatari took the handbrake off and reversed around back onto the road. The harbour was on the other side of the island near the lighthouse. Hatari took a brief glance at the map, then pressed down on the accelerator and the car trundled towards freedom. Atsuko and Miho were talking in the back but Hatari couldn't hear what they were saying over the engine, Mitsuru was folding a piece of paper into various origami shapes, he would make one, then fold it back out and make another, he never looked up. Hatari thought it best that he not say anything.

After about twenty minutes they were halfway across the island and had to drive through the main settlement, Hatari had to slow down and so witnessed grief overtake the three of them further, they all looked down at their feet to avoid seeing this place. It was another horrible twist on a common idea, it was like they were old alumni going back to their college. The road was straight almost the entire way down so Hatari was able to keep an average speed of about 50mph. The lighthouse came into sight and Hatari felt relief that they were almost to safety. Then he heard it.

The sound of helicopter blades.

Hatari looked into the rear view mirror and saw a modified 'Rebus' combat helicopter that the Japanese army used. He remembered that it had escorted the transport Chinooks to the island and he also remembered that it was the only helicopter that never left. Hatari predicted what would happen next in time to swerve off the road and avoid the machine gun fire slamming into the tarmac just short of the jeep, practically deafening him. With a sharp swerve of the wheel the jeep turned 180 degrees and Hatari flatted the accelerator to the floor and sped down a slightly open section of forest.

Hatari was thrown left and right as he weaved in and out of the trees, moving at great speeds, he could hear the helicopter flying up higher trying to pin him down. He briefly glanced left to see that Mitsuru had turned pure white. Hatari shouted over the engine.

"YOU THREE! THERE ARE GUNS NEXT TO ALL THE SEATS! I WANT YOU TO TAKE THEM OUT OF THE HOLSTERS!"

Mitsuru turned to look at Hatari before complying and clutching the gun close to his chest. Atsuko and Miho did the same. Hatari continued to weave back and forth but the forest was getting thicker, he couldn't stay hidden for much longer. Hatari began to drive across the edge of the forest, hugging the trees as he went. He saw them zoom by the window and heard twigs breaking. WHOMP! A massive branch hammered into the windscreen and cracked it, Hatari kept on driving, nothing could deter him now.

The helicopter was still audible but it sounded very far away. Hatari saw the harbour, as he predicted the boat was there surrounded by barbed wire fencing, He had a plan now. He turned the jeep sharply and nestled it in the trees. He signalled for Mitsuru and the girls to stay where they were. He briskly walked over to the boat's operator who was smoking on the deck. Hatari began to run as he got closer and the operator turned around in a panic.

"Hey I know you!" He stated stupidly "I drove the boat up to the dock check things out. What the hell's going on! What's with the chopper?"

"Terrorists attacked the island! The chopper's trying to find them but I've been ordered to escort the final three here so they can be taken off the island safely. The game is cancelled!"

"What!" He spat "Well quickly then! Bring them over!"

Hatari ran back and pulled Atsuko and Miho out of the jeep while Mitsuru got out himself. He pulled the jeep's canvas roof up and then led them to the dock, willing the copter not to see what he was doing. Before they passed through the open gate Hatari thrust a scrap of paper into Mitsuru's hand. As they got onto the boat Hatari saluted to the operator who waved back and fired the boat up before quickly pulling out of the dock. There was no way the chopper wouldn't notice the boat pulling out but then he wanted it to. He took up the rifle and began to shoot the air around the boat, as if he were attempting to kill them. The boat sped up and Mitsuru looked back with a face of understanding before shrinking into distance. Hatari kept on shooting until he heard the blades draw closer. He looked back and made sure the copter was aware of him before turning and dashing over to the jeep. He immediately kicked it into gear and tore out of the trees without ever even closing the door. He drove across the edge of the beach swerving left and right so as to at least pretend he was avoiding the helicopter's gunfire. He saw the sand disappear from under the wheels and the new orange horizon lower out of sight beneath the climbing cliff face he was driving up. He felt the wind against his face blowing away his regrets. The bullets gently strummed against the back of the jeep and it drifted peacefully out of Hatari's control. He took his hands off the wheel and sat back as the bonnet turned towards the sea.

He felt the ground fall away from underneath the wheels replaced by nothing but air. The bonnet dipped and Hatari felt himself being pulled back into the seat by gravity. On a roller coaster with no seatbelt. With a splash the car made contact with the water and righted itself before slowly sinking. The blue sea began to pour over the bonnet and the level rose up the windows. Hatari felt the pleasant cooling sensation as the water began to rise around his feet. He thought of his wife's warm smile and his son's throaty laugh as he felt himself sinking further. The water was around his shoulders now and ever rising. Hatari knew he'd done the right thing, after half a lifetime of rolling over and obeying the rules he'd finally broken free and defied the evil empire he was working under. As the bullet riddled jeep gradually disappeared into the deep blue, taking Hatari with it, his last regret echoed through eternity.

"I only wish... I'd done it sooner."

**Epilogue**

Mitsuru stood uncomfortably in the train station, feeling the cold air conditioning against his bare arms. He kept his head down and let his cap hide his face. He would only have to wait a few more minutes, and then he'd be on the train and safe. Miho stood next to him, she began to look left and right uncomfortably so he grabbed her shoulder and squeezed it tightly, giving the signal to stay calm. Mitsuru heard the relieving sound of the train approaching, wheels against track. He chanced a look to the left and saw what he feared. Police officers were pushing the crowd aside and moving ever closer to him.

Mitsuru couldn't take any chances, he grabbed Miho's arm and ran. He heard their footsteps become more rapid behind him. As he pushed through the thick crowd he felt the repetitive nature of his situation. For almost a year he'd been running, it was all he could do. At first he'd tried to seek out his parents but the government had anticipated that and were poised to capture him there, that's how they got Atsuko. From then on Mitsuru and Miho had been moving down the spine of Japan taking back roads and cheap trains to get away, Mitsuru had planned to go to England, his English wasn't too bad and he'd always favoured the countryside. Gradually that future had began to fade away, wherever he went, there was more running. It felt like there was no escape and he knew Miho felt the same. His only communion with his former friends was in his nightmares when he saw their faces.

He could run for the rest of his life, run from the memories and run from the oppression, but what would that achieve. Mitsuru knew he was better than them, he just wanted peace. He edged to the left and pushed Miho onto the train as the doors slid shut. She stood at the window, she looked panicked at first but then a look of understanding crept across her face as she disappeared into the background.

Mitsuru turned back and faced the police, he stood firm and knocked one of them to the floor. He felt a sharp, hot pain in his chest. He didn't need to look down to know he'd been shot. He let himself fall onto his back and stretched out his arms. He looked up at the station roof and saw it give way to blue sky. He let out a serene breath and the cold slabs of concrete were replaced by fresh green grass. He looked around as time seemed to slow down.

The memories of death and destruction that had so haunted him faded away, he saw his friends again, recalled them fondly for the first time in years. They were never really gone, though. They'd been what drove him. His life had come to an abrupt climax but he had saved Miho and proven that the system could be beaten. He produced Hatari's little note from his pocket and read it, one last time:

Through time, through pain and even through death, we hold on to memory. We hold on to friendship.

It's something that they couldn't take away.

**The End.**


End file.
